


Like the Stars Love the Sky

by tigerlily_sunshine



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Established Relationship, Guilt, Hints of Future ot4, Jealousy, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Multi, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Polyamory, Protective Luke, Sounds Live Feels Live World Tour, Touring, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-12 08:02:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 37,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7927015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigerlily_sunshine/pseuds/tigerlily_sunshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael can’t admit to Luke that he <i>liked</i> kissing Calum or that he would <i>like</i> to kiss Calum again. He can’t, because admitting it to Luke means saying it out loud, and saying it out loud means that these feelings are real. It means that he loves Calum as much as he loves Ashton, and that isn’t fair to anybody, especially not Ashton who didn’t ask for a fiancé with one foot out of the door—not that Michael would ever leave Ashton, but the sentiment is the same. </p><p>(In which Michael doesn't realize he might be in love with Calum until Michael himself is engaged to Ashton.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like the Stars Love the Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hnaminie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hnaminie/gifts).



> _Written for the prompt:_
> 
>  
> 
> _Michael and Ashton are dating for some time but Michael's confused because he was been having feelings for Calum. Michael writes a song about it and accidentally send it to the entire band. Awkward situations and a difficult conversation with Ashton later and Michael and Ashton decide to try and ask Calum on a date._
> 
>  
> 
> This is a monster of a oneshot that seriously spiraled out of control. This was meant to be 15k, tops. I missed that by a mile. Holy crap.
> 
> This is a tour fic for a stretch of the first part of the North American leg of Sounds Live Feels Live Tour, but, really, I only incorporated tweets and made sure to keep the timeline as accurate as possible. (Anything else in such a short time period to write this thing would have been too much, unfortunately.)

_Part I – Calum_

“I need you to help me with something,” says Ashton one day near the beginning of the North American leg of the tour.

Calum looks up from his phone, not even bothering to press pause on his stupid bubble game app, because Ashton sounds pretty serious. The last time Ashton was this serious, he asked Calum to rent an apartment together.

Ashton had asked Calum, and not Michael, because, according to Michael, sharing a permanent abode is too big of a step for their years-old relationship. Of course, that was back last fall when Michael was dealing with the worst bout of nightmares he had ever had, and everybody was at their wits’ end trying to console him. Michael was stressed, to say the least, and the idea of making such a leaping step forward in his relationship with Ashton was terrifying, so Luke offered to bunk with Michael instead, leaving Ashton to Calum—not that it really mattered. Regardless of whose name was on the rent, Michael pretty much lived in Ashton’s bed anyway.

“Does this involve me going to buy a shovel?” asks Calum, cautiously. He is only being about seventy percent facetious. “‘Cause I’m pretty sure it’d be a better idea for one of the security guys to do that, or else I might draw unwanted publicity walking into the local hardware store.”

“What? No,” responds Ashton.

He sounds every bit as indignant as Calum had expected. Calum grins in victory. Ashton is so easy to wind up. Sometimes, it isn’t even fun—except, yes, it is. It always is.

“I need you to come help me pick out a ring.”

Calum’s grin fades. His heart sinks in his chest. His hand goes slack around his phone. It falls to his lap. His bubble game lays face-up, displaying Calum’s laughable, near-losing score with only two bubbles left in the arsenal. He is totally going to lose, but that is the least of his worries right now.

“What?”

“I need you to help me pick out a ring,” repeats Ashton. “I want to ask Michael to marry me.”

“But he didn’t even want to live with you,” says Calum, the words slipping from his lips quicker than he can register the fact that he shouldn’t say them at all.

Ashton’s face falls like it always does when somebody reminds him of how scared Michael is. He frowns, looking as if somebody has just told him that the world is going to end in precisely twenty-six minutes and he is exactly thirty minutes away from everybody he loves. Usually, Calum hates this look on him. Usually, Calum is the first one reassuring Ashton that he and Michael are great together and that Ashton is Michael’s favorite person in the whole wide world.

Calum doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t take his previous ones back, and he doesn’t offer condolences for them, either. He can’t bring himself to, not when Ashton is propositioning Calum’s worst nightmare. Calum has been in love with Michael since he was eleven years old and it was just the two of them versus the world.

Michael can’t marry Ashton.

“Michael practically lives with us anyway when we’re in LA, and we’ve actually sat down and talked about everything—about, you know, where we stand with each other—since that whole issue. I think we’re ready for the next step,” says Ashton. His recovery time is a little slower than usual, but that is probably because it was Calum who had delivered the mortal blow. “I can’t do this alone, Cal. Please, don’t make me. You know Michael better than anybody in the world. You’re his best friend.”

 _But not his boyfriend_ , thinks Calum, bitterly.

“Please,” repeats Ashton.

Calum sighs. He kind of hates himself a lot in this moment in time, because Michael is his best friend, and Ashton is his best friend, and Calum can’t think of anybody else in the entire world that deserves to be happy than the two of them. Luke, maybe, but Luke is so painfully single that Calum is surprised he doesn’t wear a wrist brace on his right hand.

The point is that Calum should be happy for Michael and Ashton. He should be, and maybe on some level, _he is_ , but a bigger part of him is jealous. He is jealous that it isn’t him going to Ashton to help pick out a ring for Michael, because _it should be Calum_.

It should be, but it isn’t.

“Absolutely. I’ll help you,” agrees Calum, because he can’t _not_ be a part of his best friends’ happiness—even if he wishes it were his happiness. “I just don’t want you to, you know, scare Mike off and get your own heart broken.”

“I’ve been waiting for Michael to run for, like, almost five years,” admits Ashton.

He falls onto the couch next to Calum and curls up around Calum, laying his head on Calum’s shoulder. Calum should move—should shove him off—because Ashton is the one who is stealing Calum’s happily-ever-after, but Calum doesn’t. He just sinks lower into the couch cushion so that the angle is better for Ashton’s neck. Calum is a good friend.

“He’s fucking in love with you,” says Calum. The words don’t hurt to say as much as he thought they might. They certainly don’t feel like he is chewing on nails. They only sort of sting on his tongue, but he supposes that truths like that always will. “He’d much sooner give up music than you.”

“There’s still a chance he might choose pizza over me,” jokes Ashton.

Calum laughs. It is easy to with Ashton, because Ashton is kind enough to overlook Calum’s tendency to stick his large foot in his own mouth like he did earlier when he callously reminded Ashton of Michael’s fears. It is also easy to laugh with Ashton if Calum pretends like Ashton is talking about some random person that has caught his eye—if Ashton is talking about anybody in the entire universe other than Michael.

If Calum is going to help Ashton pick out a ring for _Michael_ , Calum had better get damn good at pretending like the man he is in love with is not the same man that Ashton is going to propose to.

 

Ashton tracks down a nice jewelry store in New York City. He calls while they are in Holmdel to make a private appointment for their day off. He is cutting it close to his deadline, because he wants to ask Michael to marry him right after the Madison Square Garden show. Apparently the biggest night of their lives needs to be a tiny bit bigger.

Calum hates that it is such a romantic idea.

He hates that Michael will love it even more.

They take a security team down to the galleria at dawn, which is nearly an entire two and a half hours before the store even opens. New York City may never sleep, but nobody who is awake cares for the two men and an army of body guards walking into an upscale jewelry store. With any luck, there won’t be anybody who cares that they leave, either, and Michael, as well as the rest of the world, will remain completely naïve to Ashton and Calum’s morning escapade.

The saleslady at the counter is the manager of the shop. She is a beautiful dark haired woman in her mid-thirties. If she has any notion of who Ashton or Calum is, she does not let on as so. She introduces herself as Daphne before she shows them to the jewelry case Ashton had requested. She begins to show Ashton the various rings she recommends—based on price, probably, since even she works on commission—but Calum doesn’t pay her sales any attention.

He peruses the rings on display at his own pace, formulating his opinions of them without being swayed either way by the salesperson. Calum knows she is just doing her job, and she is doing it well, but he will be damned if Michael gets some gaudy ring just because the saleslady is good at her profession. Michael deserves the best. He deserves what he would most like, and perhaps this is the real reason Ashton brought Calum with him to pick out a ring. While Ashton distracts the saleslady, Calum can look at his own volition.

There are dozens of beautiful rings, of course, but there are many more that are so atrociously ugly that Calum wants to recommend that the saleslady slash their prices to a fraction of the retail just to get them out of the door as quickly as possible. Calum doesn’t say a word, though, because Ashton is doing a good job at pretending to be interested in the world’s most gaudy golden ring with a big, fat diamond situated at top. Calum has to bite down hard on his bottom lip to keep from busting out laughing at the revulsion plain on Ashton’s face as Ashton gently explains to Daphne that he is looking for an engagement ring for a man, not a woman.  

As Daphne trips over herself trying to save face—and the sale—Calum elbows Ashton in the side to get his attention. Ashton smiles politely to Daphne, but, when Ashton looks over to meet Calum’s eyes, Calum can see the fissures in Ashton’s forced smile. Calum winces in sympathy. He nods toward a set of rings in the back of the case in front of him to distract Ashton.

“Think Mike’ll love that one on the right, yeah?” suggests Calum.

He steps out of the way to let Ashton take a gander at the perfect ring for Michael. It is a simple platinum ring, and it comes in three different designs for choosing. One of the rings has a single line in the center of it, encircling the entire piece of jewelry. Another one is similar but with two lines, and the final ring has a three-line braided design pressed into the metal. The saleslady pulls the ring set out of the case so that Ashton can look closer.

“Couples typically choose a combination of these two rings,” says Daphne. She points to the pair of rings with the simple lines. “I think people like how the single line fits perfectly in between the double lines. I certainly see the beauty in the symmetry.”

“What d’you think, Cal?” asks Ashton.

No matter how much Daphne knows about the jewelry, she knows nothing about Michael. That is Calum’s territory. That is who Ashton turns to. Calum takes a long look at the rings. He knows which one he would prefer for himself, but he knows it isn’t the same as Michael’s taste.

“I think Mike would like the single one,” says Calum, eyeing the ornate braided one on the opposite end. He personally likes it better, but Michael wouldn’t. “You know him. He would like the idea of your rings matching up.”

Ashton hums his agreement. He turns to the saleslady and announces his purchase, specifying the ring sizes that he and Michael would need. She directs them to another counter where a register is set up and running. Ashton and Calum wander over there as Daphne collects the correct rings.

Ashton won’t need his for a little while. While they wait for Daphne to come back, he tells Calum he doesn’t want to push Michael too far, as he is afraid of scaring Michael off, which Calum thinks is ridiculous. Michael loves Ashton, but Calum knows that the engagement will be a big step forward for Michael, and maybe having matching rings from the very beginning might be pushing things after all.

Calum sort of hates that Ashton knows Michael so well and cares about Michael so much to worry about things like that.

“How’d you know that I liked the double?” asks Ashton, leaning up against the counter.

Calum grins at him. He moves around Ashton so that he can lean on the counter, too. The jewelry underneath the clear case is atrociously gaudy. Calum makes a face at the price tag attached to one of the flashiest watches. Nobody in their right mind would purchase such a devastatingly ugly timepiece. Calum glances over at Ashton.

“You give me too little credit,” he says. “I would’ve been the man Michael would have gone to for this if you hadn’t beaten him to the punch.”

“Not Luke?” 

Calum laughs.

“Luke would more likely convince Mike to play a game of _FIFA_ before they go out to the shops, and then they’d both take a nap and never get anything done.”

“Yeah,” says Ashton, also laughing. “You’re probably right. Thanks for doing this with me.”

“If anybody deserves to be happy, it’s you and Michael, and I’m honored to be a part of your happiness.”

The words taste like acid on Calum’s tongue. Ashton gives him a thousand watt smile. Calum tries to offer him a smile back, but it is hard to smile when Calum can feel his heart shattering into a thousand pieces. He means what he said, though. Michael and Ashton do deserve to be happy—Calum just wishes he were the reason Michael’s happiness.

 

Ashton tweets out, “Tomorrow is a huge day in 5SOS land. One of the biggest gigs of our career and we have a new song out and it’s all happening.” He adds a series of emojis—a koala, a smiling face, and a heart. Finally, he tops it off with a pair ‘x’s.

Calum reads it three times through. Comments flood in, and he wonders what people would say if they knew what the emojis actually mean—if they knew that Ashton was going to ask Michael to marry him tomorrow night.

It is a depressing thought, the idea that Calum’s life is going to crumble on the biggest night of his career. It is going to happen, though. Ashton has the ring in his suitcase right now, and he is going to go down on one knee right in front of Michael after they play one of their biggest gigs ever.

Calum closes out of Twitter and goes to see if Luke wants to work out in the hotel’s gym.

 

“D’you think Luke would quit the band if I wrote a song about his smelly feet?” asks Michael later that day when he barrels into Calum’s hotel room and plops down next to Calum on the bed.

Calum makes a face.

“Still haven’t written a song?”

“Still haven’t _thought_ of a song, let alone written one,” grumbles Michael. “Seriously, the idea about Luke’s feet has been my best in a month, and I’m supposed to have _something_ done for Luke and me to work on next week.”

“Doesn’t Luke have a couple of songs already written? Just work on those, and don’t worry too much that you haven’t written anything. You know that you’ll come up with something before we finish recording the album.”

“But we worked on Luke’s stuff last time and the time before that. I sorta feel like I’m useless. I’ve contributed absolutely nothing worth anything. It’s time I start pulling my weight.”

“You’re worried about pulling your weight? Mike, you composed that song Ashton was having trouble with, and you rewrote the guitar parts in the song we recorded last week when it was obvious that it was too difficult for Luke to sing the fast part and play at the same time. I think you’re more than pulling your weight in this band.”

Michael makes a noise in the back of his throat. He has always had trouble believing in himself, and, sometimes, he doesn’t know how to listen to somebody tell him that he isn’t a failure. It breaks Calum’s heart every time. Michael should believe he is awesome all of the time, because that is exactly what Michael is.

If Michael were Calum’s, then Calum would spend every single waking moment making sure that Michael knows _and believes_ that he is a beautiful, amazing human being. He wouldn’t let Michael think any less. Ever.

But the thing is that Michael isn’t Calum’s—and come tomorrow, after the MSG show, Michael won’t ever be his. He will be Ashton’s with a ring on his finger and plans for a wedding.

“I still need to write a song,” says Michael.

“I don’t think that an ode to Luke’s foot hygiene is going to be our next big hit.”

“You’re probably right,” says Michael. “I’m just—I’m at a loss.”

Calum hates his life, but he loves Michael, so maybe that is why he decides to help Michael out of his slump instead of asking Michael to run away with him and get married before Ashton has a chance to pop the question.

“Write about Ashton.”

Michael sighs. He lays his head on Calum’s shoulder and curls up so that he is practically seated in Calum’s lap. It doesn’t help Calum’s tiny-not-so-small crush on Michael one bit, but he doesn’t put Michael off him. He likes the feel of Michael in his arms. Michael fits there. Perfectly. Calum tries not to wonder whether Michael fits just as well in Ashton’s arms.

“I have,” says Michael, softly. His breath puffs against Calum’s bare neck. “But—I can’t—I mean—nothing is coming out right. I don’t really know how to put how I feel for him into a song, you know. It’s almost _too_ personal, if that’s even possible.”

Calum thinks about the ring hidden away in the bottom of Ashton’s suitcase. He wants to blurt it out right now that Ashton is going to propose to Michael, and if Michael doesn’t know how to capture his love for Ashton in a song, maybe Ashton isn’t the man Michael should spend the rest of his life with. Calum doesn’t say a word, because he kind of, sort of does understand how it feels to be so in love with somebody that neither words nor music can measure up.

 

Playing a sold out show at MSG is beyond Calum’s wildest dreams, yet, somehow, here he is with his band, and they kill the show. It is probably the best one of their entire careers. There is so much energy in the place that Calum is afraid that the world itself might implode right here, right now. He feeds off the energy, off the excitement. He jumps around on stage, his fingers working over his bass, and his tongue wrapping around the lyrics that he knows by heart. He messes around with Luke, and he steals Michael’s mic, and, in the midst of all of the excitement, Calum can almost forget that his life is going to end as soon as they’re off the stage.

He does eventually remember with stark clarity, though. Ashton can’t keep his hands himself, and he throws himself at Michael right in front of the damn crowd. Calum is terrified for a moment that Ashton is going to pop the question right here in front of everybody. He doesn’t, but he does say, just loud enough for Calum and Luke and, most importantly, Michael to hear over the screams of the crowd, “I love you so damn much, Michael Clifford.”

Well, that is almost as bad.

Calum has to turn away. Luke is right there, and Calum supposes he should do some damage control—though why he’s trying to protect Ashton and Michael’s relationship when he would much rather be Michael’s boyfriend is beyond him. Regardless, Calum hurries to catch up to Luke. Sweaty, he throws his arm over Luke’s shoulder. They stumble, high-on-life, back to the dressing room.

Each step may as well be Calum’s last one. That is how it feels, at least. As soon as they all enter the dressing room, Ashton is going to unwrap himself from Michael and go down on one knee. It should be Calum who gets to go down on one knee for Michael, not Ashton.

“You okay?” asks Luke the moment they step inside of the dressing room. He shrugs out from underneath Calum’s arm so that he can turn and face him. He frowns at Calum. “You look like—”

But whatever it is Calum looks like to Luke goes unsaid. Ashton and Michael crash into the room, a twisted, monstrous ball of limbs. Calum moves to the corner out of their way, next to the door that leads to the toilets down the hall. This is it. This is the end of Calum’s world. He needs an easy getaway.

Ashton falls to one knee right in the middle of the room. Calum’s stomach hits the floor at the same time. This is everything Calum pictured it would be—Ashton sweaty from the show, looking up at Michael like Michael is the most precious thing in the entire universe. It is so much harder to watch than it is to imagine it, but Calum can’t look away, not even as his heart shatters into tiny, irreparable pieces.

“Michael,” breathes Ashton like a prayer.

Just like that, time stands still. Michael whips around to face Ashton, his face a picture perfect mixture of pleased and surprised. Calum feels sick at his stomach. He might vomit watching this. He should leave now before his world comes crashing down.

He doesn’t move.

“I have loved you since the moment I first laid eyes on you, and I swear to you I will love you for the rest of forever. You’re my best friend, my confidant, my _life_. Will you do me the ultimate honor of allowing me to be your husband? Michael Clifford, will you marry me?”

For a long moment, Michael says nothing. He just stares wide-eyed at Ashton like he can’t believe what is right before his eyes. Ashton’s hopeful expression begins to falter. Calum feels like jumping with joy, but, in the next second, he feels equally guilty for taking joy from Ashton’s impending heartbreak. Calum shouldn’t be happy for his best friend’s unhappiness.

Michael’s gaze darts up to meet Calum’s, and Calum’s heart skips a beat in his chest. He can’t read the exact emotion skating underneath his surprised expression. Whatever it is, it is enough to make Michael hesitate. Calum doesn’t dare get his hopes up that Michael might say no. He can’t, because Michael deserves his happy ending, and Ashton deserves one, too, and Michael and Ashton love each other more than anybody else in the entire world could love somebody else.

“Yes,” answers Michael, his voice hoarse. He breaks Calum’s gaze to smile down at Ashton. “Yes, I’ll marry you, Ashton Irwin.”

Calum’s heart shatters to dust.

Ashton slips the beautiful, single lined ring around Michael’s third finger. He drags Michael down to him in the next moment and presses their lips together. All around the room, the crew whistle and applaud at the couple. Calum knows that he should join in, but he can’t feel his hands enough to slap them together in even a farce of an enthusiastic clap.

Instead, he meets Luke’s eyes next to him, and Luke’s enthusiasm gives way to worry. Calum tries for a smile. He doesn’t do it too well, apparently, because Luke takes a step toward him, concern bleeding into thick worry. Calum can’t handle Luke’s pity, not on top of the crushing weight of his world falling to pieces with the platinum band encircling Michael’s finger.

It should be Calum’s ring there, not Ashton’s.

So, to avoid Luke’s heavy, pity-thick gaze, Calum ducks out of the room and heads for the toilets where he doesn’t have to witness the end of the world any longer. In there, he splashes icy cold water on his sweaty face. He hunches over the sink, watching the water swirl down the drain. He wishes it were that easy to get rid of his problems—that he could just wash his feelings for Michael straight down a drain and never, ever have to worry about them again.

Maybe then it wouldn’t hurt so much to know that he has lost—that Michael is Ashton’s and will never, ever be Calum’s.

 

A crew member comes to get him from the toilets some ten minutes later. Calum pretends there is a stubborn ketchup stain on his shirt from his two-minute dinner before the show. The crew member nods his head, a little too agreeable, and Calum realizes he is a horrible actor. It is good that he has this whole band thing going for him.

A van is waiting outside of the venue to take them back to their hotel. Ashton and Michael are already seated in the back, wrapped so tightly around one another that Calum is surprised they can breathe. The platinum ring around Michael’s finger hurts to look at, so Calum pointedly ignore it. He sits with Luke in the middle seat.

“Did you need to piss that badly?” asks Luke, grinning, but the glint in his eyes belies his concern.

Calum shrugs. He pulls out his phone, untangles his earphones, and turns his music all the way up. He pretends like it is enough to block out Ashton and Michael being sickeningly loving right behind him.

 

Back at the hotel, Michael demands a celebration. Calum tries to fake sick out of it. He offers his congratulations to Ashton and Michael. The words taste like acid on his tongue. They make him physically sick, but he musters up what he hopes passes for a smile then says he is too exhausted to party tonight.

It is only half of a lie. He is tired—emotionally drained, that is. More than that, he doesn’t think he can hang around Michael and Ashton being lovey-dovey all night without needing to vomit or, maybe, to plain, old cry. As happy as he should be for his best friends getting married, it hurts twice as much that he has officially lost Michael.

So Calum shrugs off Michael and Ashton’s attempts to persuade him to at least join them for one beer. Luke, the gentle soul he is, doesn’t say a word. He hangs back from the other two with a frown on his face like he knows exactly why it is that Calum can’t stomach being around Michael and Ashton tonight. Calum has never, ever told another soul about his not-so-tiny crush on Michael, but maybe Luke isn’t as naïve as everybody else in Calum’s life. Maybe Luke does understand.

If Luke does, Calum doesn’t care to find out, not tonight, at least. All Calum wants to do is drown himself in liquor from the minibar in his room and forget that this entire day happened. He would prefer to do that in solidarity—which is, apparently, going to be how he spends the rest of his life now that Michael is officially Ashton’s.

Calum retreats to his room like a dog with his tail tucked between his legs. His shoulders are heavy with loss. His hand trembles so badly when he goes to unlock his door that it takes three times to insert the key card. Right before he closes his door into the safety of his single room, he makes the mistake of looking across the hall.

There, still wrapped around Ashton is Michael, and Michael is staring over Ashton’s shoulder right at Calum, his eyebrows furrowed in worry that shouldn’t be there in the hours following Ashton’s proposal. Calum wants to holler across the hall a crude _take your man to bed_ like a best friend would, but his shattered heart won’t allow him to open his mouth.

He closes the door instead. He doesn’t bother flipping on the light. It is bright enough in the room with the city lights bleeding in through the window. Calum likes the aesthetic of it, the way the soft light bounces off the white comforter on top of his bed. It makes the world seem so much smaller. It makes heartache seem so much smaller, too.

The minibar only has a few choices of alcohol, and none that Calum particularly favors, but Calum doesn’t care. Any alcohol will do at this point. Calum grabs as many tiny bottles as he can carry. He stumbles his way to the bed. Once there, he downs two bottles as quickly as he can uncap them. He drinks a third one at a slower pace, and he thinks that he should maybe get up for another handful before he is too drunk to function.

He doesn’t move. He lays on his back and stares up at the ceiling, watching lights dance across it. He isn’t drunk yet, sadly, but he is starting to feel buzzed. A nice tingly feeling underneath his fingertips that makes him feel lighter than air. He wants another drink, so he leans up enough to take one without drowning himself in it. He downs the rest of his third one and, quickly following that, a fourth one, also. 

After that, time becomes irrelevant, as does the number of drinks he pours into his system. His shattered heart beats to the rhythm of Michael’s name. He wonders if Ashton and Michael are fucking each other just across the hall from him. They probably are. Newly engaged couples aren’t known for their celibacy.

Jealousy burns in the back of Calum’s throat, though, in reality, that is probably just the copious amount of alcohol Calum has consumed. That should be him with Michael in the hotel room across the hall, not Ashton. That should be him fucking Michael against the bed, not Ashton.

But it isn’t.

It’s Ashton—Ashton who gets to live Calum’s dream.

And Calum hates it.

He hates it so much that he pushes himself up off the bed. He stumbles his way to the door, and he throws it open. If he were sober, he would stop right here. He isn’t. He is so far gone beyond drunk that he staggers all the way across the hall and slams himself against the door. He slaps his hand against the wood, too intoxicated to curl his hand into a fist.

Vaguely, he notes that his hand stings. The joy of the drink coursing through his veins is how little he registers the pain. Truthfully, though, it has to be much, much less painful than his heart shattering into millions of tiny pieces when Ashton had gone down on one knee for the only person Calum has ever loved.

It isn’t fair.

Calum slaps at the door again, but he misses as it opens, and he stumbles right into Michael’s arms. Drunk, Calum grins happily into Michael’s neck. Michael’s arms fit so perfectly around him that it should be a crime.

“Cal?” mutters Michael.

Calum clings tighter to Michael, letting Michael’s voice wash over him.

“You’re drunk,” says Michael in the next breath. It isn’t a question, but the next one is. “How did you get so drunk?”

“Love you, Mike,” slurs Calum. “Love you like the stars love the sky.”

“That’s good,” says Michael. He pats Calum’s back. He adjusts his hold on Calum, pulling Calum up to a more upright standing position. He continues to support the majority of Calum’s weight. “Thought you were Ashton. He’s down at the ice machine, and he didn’t take a key.”

“Shouldn’t marry Ashton,” mumbles Calum. He nuzzles his head into the crook of Michael’s neck. His words come out slurred together and muffled, but he means them all the same. “Hasn’t loved you as long as I have.”

Michael goes rigid, freezing against Calum’s body, but Calum is too far gone to the curse of alcohol to recognize the telltale signs that he should shut up. That these forbiddingly jealous thoughts should stay firmly where they are: in his traitorous brain.

“Cal,” says Michael, again, but this time it isn’t a question. It is a warning.

Calum is too far gone to realize the danger he is stumbling straight into. He pushes away from Michael, an easy feat since Michael’s arms have gone slack around him. Calum’s legs feel like jelly, like they always do when he has too much to drink.

Usually, Ashton is right there to hold him up when is too far gone. Ashton isn’t here. Calum is glad of that—it means that Calum has Michael all to himself like he should have.

“I think you should get some sleep,” says Michael.

But Calum doesn’t want to sleep. He wants to kiss Michael, and Michael is _right here_ , so Calum goes for it. He surges forward, closing the distance he had created between them, and crashes his lips against Michael’s like he has wanted to do since before they even met Ashton.

For a fraction of a second, it is beautiful. Michael gives into Calum on instinct, always eager to give Calum what he wants. Their lips slot together. It is hot and wet and all-consuming, and it steals the very breath from Calum’s lung. It is, in short, everything of Calum’s dreams.

Except…

Michael’s brain catches up to his lips. He shoves Calum away from him. Calum staggers, stumbling but never catching his footing. He hits the ground hard. This time, when the pain starts to resonate, the alcohol coursing through his veins does nothing to stifle it out. He is left sprawled on his buttocks, staring drunkenly up at Michael with the shattered pieces of his heart breaking even more.

He thinks he is going to be sick.

He thinks he might cry.

“What the fuck d’you think you’re doing?” snarls Michael, lording over Calum. Betrayal shines bright in his eyes. His lips are so, so red and still slick with Calum’s spit. Around the third finger of his left hand rests the beautiful platinum engagement ring Ashton had given him just a few hours ago. “I’m _marrying_ Ashton! I _love_ Ashton! Why the fuck did you barge in here and tell me you love me and then fucking kiss me like that?”

Calum blinks at him, unable to speak, but that is probably for the best. Michael doesn’t want to hear what he has to say.

“You know what? I don’t fucking care. Go get some sleep and just—get your shit together.”

Michael slams the door shut. It echoes in the hall. Calum stays where he is, pitifully sprawled out on the floor, and wishes the world would stop turning—or that his heart would stop hurting. In reality, he isn’t sure which is more likely to happen, but if he had to guess, the world would sooner end right now in this very second.

 

_Part II – Michael_

After MSG, the concerts begin to run together. That doesn’t mean that the band gives any less than their absolute all for any of the concerts, though. They still play their hearts out at every venue to thousands of screaming fans, and they still say that each concert is better than their last. It is true, all of it, but MSG will forever have a special place in Michael’s heart: it is the night the night Ashton asked Michael marry him—it is the night Michael said yes—but it is also the night Michael lost his best friend.

Things between Michael and Calum freeze over. Michael can’t stomach the sight of Calum. For his part, it seems that Calum can’t handle being around Michael too long, either. The morning after MSG, Calum gets on the bus with bloodshot eyes and an inability to look at either Ashton or Michael. He says a general good morning to everybody, though it is obvious he is speaking directly to Luke, then he disappears back to his bunk, where he remains for the duration of the bus ride.

Michael doesn’t mention the kiss to Ashton. He tries about half of a dozen times that night and then the next morning to broach the subject, but, in the end, he can never bring himself to say _Calum kissed me_. The awful part about that is that he would have to follow up that statement with a world-ending truth of _and I kissed him back_. He can’t do that to Ashton. He can’t admit to Ashton that he never wanted to stop kissing Calum, that pushing Calum away was the hardest thing he had ever had to do in his life, or that if Calum kissed him again, he would kiss Calum right back.

None of it matters anyway. Michael is in love with Ashton. He is going to marry Ashton. No amount of _what if_ s as far as Calum is concerned is going to change how Michael feels about Ashton.

Calum is nothing more than an age-old, come-to-nothing crush.

Except he isn’t—especially now that Michael knows how Calum’s lips feel pressed, however drunkenly, against his own.

But Michael pushes away those forbidden thoughts of Calum. He focuses on Ashton instead, clinging to Ashton like a second skin. If Ashton notices any change in Michael’s behavior, he doesn’t comment on it. Perhaps Ashton doesn’t actually think that anything is different, because Ashton enjoys Michael’s company. He likes holding Michael’s left hand to feel the cool metal of the ring rub against his own skin, and Michael likes the way that Ashton’s eyes light up whenever he catches a glimpse of the symbol of their promise of forever.

 

Still, though, Michael feels so guilty about the kiss he shares with Calum that he posts a picture of his and Ashton’s hug right after MSG—and right before the life-changing _will you marry me?_ question—and he captions it, “A glorious post MSG hug.”

He tags Ashton in it then, before he posts it, he adds a tiny heart-eyed emoji. It is the closest he can come to an announcement that he said _yes_ to the aforementioned unknown question, but Ashton will understand it. Calum will, too. Michael isn’t quite sure who he is hoping will see it more.

 

Early in the morning a few days later, after the MSG gig, Michael vows to himself to give Ashton their forever as the pair of them toast overpriced tequila as the bus whisks them away from New York onto their next venue down the eastern coast of the United States.

That evening, Ashton tweets out a cheesy, “You don’t know what happiness is until you make an effort to discover happiness.”

Michael takes one glance at the tiny words on his phone screen, and he grins up at Ashton, who is already smiling back at him from across the tiny kitchenette of their bus. Ashton is supposed to be making them both a cup of tea before they crawl into hiss bunk. Ashton has bottom this time, and they have both had their fair shares of falling out of the bunk to ever chance the top one ever again.

Instead, Ashton stands over two steaming mugs of plain water and smiles at Michael like there is nothing else he would rather stare at for the rest of his life. Michael feels hot all over, like Ashton’s love is too much to handle and Michael himself isn’t one bit worthy of it. The ring around the third finger of his left hand feels heavy with the guilt that flourishes in Michael’s heart.

He loves Ashton so much, but that doesn’t change the fact that he kissed Calum back, and he doesn’t deserve Ashton’s love at all. He swears to himself that he will one day deserve Ashton’s love again.

 

A couple of days later, Michael tweets out, “this tour is amazing. life is good. thank you.”

He uses the hashtag _SoundsLiveFeelsLive_ , because he can’t use the _ISaidYes_ hashtag, even though that is the one he wants to use more than anything, if only to ease his guilt about kissing Calum. He loves Ashton. He wants to prove that love to himself and to the world and, mostly, to Calum. He can’t do so directly, not without risking backlash on the band, so he settles for a plain hashtag and hopes that his message comes anyway across to the people who matter.

By the way that Ashton’s face lights up when he sees it a few minutes later in the dressing room, Michael thinks Ashton understands the message he couldn’t say. Guilt continues to churn in Michael’s stomach, because he has yet to confide in Ashton about Calum. For now, though, the smile on Ashton’s face is enough to ease Michael’s worries.  

 

In the meantime, Michael still has the pressing issue that he needs to write a song. He keeps his writing journal within reach at all times, but he doesn’t get any farther than jumbled messes of sentences that may or may not be beaten into actual lyrics somewhere down the road.

He scribbles down a badly thought out _I’ve been thinking to myself, maybe I’m in love with someone else_ just before they go on stage at Charlotte, and he doesn’t realize until they are halfway through the set exactly what he has inadvertently admitted to himself.

The songwriting journal shines underneath a beacon of light backstage as they take a break before the encore. The words it contains haunt him. Michael guzzles down a bottle of water and thinks about ripping out the last written page of it.

He doesn’t.

He reaches for a pen instead and, right underneath the first lyrics, he adds a redeeming _But you’re the one for me, I swear it, can’t you see?_

The addition doesn’t help ease the guilt chewing away at his consciousness, but the jumbled mess of words seems to fit together somehow, so he slams the journal shut and hurries to follow his band back to the stage. Ashton’s hand finds Michael’s in the final second of cover they have in the darkness. He squeezes it once, smiles over at Michael, then bounds for the drum kit at the back of the stage.

Ashton’s love burns warmly in Michael’s chest, dulling the icy cold guilt that the kiss with Calum had instilled in Michael’s heart. Michael barely looks at the audience during the encore. He can’t keep from looking back at Ashton, from admiring Ashton, from wishing that he could kiss Ashton right here, right now on stage in front of thousands of screaming fans and Calum himself.

Michael doesn’t. Instead, he makes heart-eyes at Ashton, plays his guitar, and misses a couple of intros that forces Luke to cover for him. Michael grins a gracious _thank you_ at Luke the second time it happens. Luke shakes his head fondly at him, amused, for the most part, at how distracted Michael is by his fiancé.

Beyond Luke is Calum, playing his bass off pure muscle memory. His eyes are locked on Michael, and he is frowning in between his lyrics, wearing his heartbreak on his sleeve so obviously that the crowd of fans on his side have started to pick up how off Calum seems tonight.

The grin falls from Michael’s face, his own heart clenching with guilt. For a split second, he isn’t sure what he feels most guilty about: if it is because he kissed Calum while engaged to Ashton or if it is because he shoved Calum away when he wanted nothing more than to pull Calum closer.

The thoughts inside of Michael’s head are almost too much to handle, especially while staring beyond Luke at Calum, so Michael drops his gaze to his guitar. He ignores the guilt twisting around his heart. His mind fills in another lyric: _I love you so much, it’s true, yet I can’t help but to love him, too_.

 

“Hey, are you okay?” asks Ashton after the show.

Sweaty, Ashton reaches for a towel that one of the crew members has on hand for him. He wipes it across his face, down his shoulders, then leaves it to hang around his neck. His hair is a tangle of wet curls plastered to his forehead. His skin is flushed red from the heat of the stage, and his eyes are bright with concern.

Michael isn’t worthy of such worry, especially not with the traitorous thoughts running rampant through his mind. He clutches his songwriting journal closer to his chest. The journal feels hot to the touch, but that is just Michael’s overactive imagination. Words can’t turn the pages to fire, not even those as flammable as Michael admitting that maybe, _just maybe_ , his crush on Calum may not be as in the past as he has sworn up and down it is.

“Just an off night, I think,” says Michael, because Ashton deserves an answer even if he doesn’t deserve a lie. Michael isn’t lying, not really. He feels knocked off-kilter by the broken lyrics he has scribbled across the pages of the book he is clinging to for dear life. “Luke probably won’t shut up about having to save my ass twice back there for the next week. That’s going to be a pain.”

Ashton smiles uncertainly, like he doesn’t quite believe Michael’s odd behavior can be accredited to an off night but, like a good, trusting fiancé, he doesn’t want to call Michael on his lie. Guilt churns in the pit of Michael’s stomach. Michael thinks he might vomit. He doesn’t deserve Ashton’s gentility.

“Don’t worry about Luke. He’ll find something shiny pretty soon, and it’ll distract him,” says Ashton, playing along despite his doubts. “You know him.”

Michael forces out a laugh, because that is what is expected of him. Though it sounds airy to his own ears, it is the best that he can do to keep up the charade that everything is fine and that he really is just having an off night. He doesn’t make a habit of lying to Ashton, but this whole kissing thing with Calum feels like the worst lie he has ever told Ashton, and Ashton deserves better.

Ashton deserves so much better than a fiancé who kisses another man and would like to kiss said man again.

“Let’s head to the bus, yeah?” suggests Ashton, smiling softly at Michael. “I’ll make you a nice cup of tea, and we’ll turn in early. Sound good?”

Michael grins. It comes genuinely to his lips like none thus far have since he kissed Calum. It washes over him like a nice, refreshing shower. It is a breath of fresh air. Ashton has set this up so perfectly, intentionally or not, and Michael can’t help but to take advantage of the chance as it is presented to him.

“Feels good.”

Ashton laughs, startled by the pun, and he bridges the space between them to draw Michael into a bone crushing hug. Michael’s songwriting journal is smashed between them. It feels like fire against Michael’s chest, but, to Ashton who is naïve to the world-ending truth it contains, it is nothing more than an old, well-worn, leather journal.

A renewed jolt of guilt shoots right through Michael’s heart. He meets Ashton’s eyes, so close to his own that he can see the dance of brown and green swirling together in the hazel hue. He opens his mouth, ready to let the awful, horrible truth fall from his lips, because Ashton deserves that truth, but, more than that, Ashton deserves all of the heart-felt apologies damming up behind Michael’s tongue.

Michael loves Ashton. He feels so, so guilty that he kissed Calum and that he maybe, _just maybe_ , loves Calum, too. The words are right there for Michael to utter. Ashton is right here to hear them.

In the end, Michael surges forward to kiss Ashton instead, because nobody, much less Ashton, deserves to have their heart broken by someone who loves them more than their own life. Ashton kisses back just as passionate, and Michael hopes that it only tastes guilty to his own tongue.

 

Later that night, Michael crawls into his bunk where Ashton is already waiting on him. His belly is warm with the tea Ashton had made for him and hand delivered to him as he sat with his laptop taking his frustrations and guilt out on innocent NPCs in his favorite FPS game. He paused his game long enough to offer Ashton a quiet _thanks_ and to pretend like his heart wasn’t so overburdened with guilt that it threatened to combust right in his chest.

If Ashton believed there to be anything left of Michael’s earlier off night, he didn’t let on as so. He only smiled in response to Michael’s gratitude then let himself be corralled into a game of FIFA with Luke on the XBOX in the back lounge. Calum had turned in almost immediately upon stepping foot onto the bus earlier, claiming to be exhausted from the show—except Michael believed the fatigue to be more emotional than physical, because if Calum felt anything like he looked, he had to be as wracked with guilt as Michael himself was over the drunken kiss.

Initiator or not of that unfortunate kiss, Calum was still Michael’s best friend. Calum was still the first boy Michael had ever loved, way back when they were teenagers and Michael’s love for Calum was nothing more than a hopeless, unrequited crush. Michael knew that sober Calum felt awful about drunk Calum’s actions. It was in the way he held himself, like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. It was in the way that he avoided Michael and Ashton at all cost, even going as far as to ditch his plans with Ashton to explore New York the day after that fateful kiss.

The thing is, despite his actions after Ashton’s proposal, Calum isn’t a monster. He is just a man nursing a broken heart. Michael himself, even though he has Ashton, can’t imagine how he would feel if it were he who watched another man go down on one knee for Calum. He probably would have reacted just like Calum had, because, apparently, hopeless, unrequited crushes aren’t so easy to let go of… especially whenever one finds out said crush has been neither hopeless nor unrequited.  

Michael thinks about Calum all evening. Even when he is pressed flush to Ashton, his head resting on Ashton’s chest and his ear directly over Ashton’s heart, Michael can’t help but to remember how soft Calum’s lips had felt against his that night. He can’t help but to remember how Calum had tasted like cheap whiskey. His mouth waters at the recollection, and he longs to taste Calum again.

“I love you,” says Michael, seemingly out of the blue when the memories of how good it felt to kiss Calum in that split second before his brain caught up to his actions quietly overwhelm him. Guilt washes all over him like a tidal wave. He has to tell Ashton how he feels about him, because his brain is a traitor believing he still loves Calum just as much as he did when they were teenagers and Michael was unpracticed at dealing with unrequited love, and his heart is beginning to cohort with his traitorous brain.

The bus rumbles underneath them, taking them to a brand new city down the eastern coast. The cities have long since begun to run together. America is too large for its own good. There are too many places to go and too many names to remember. Michael does good recalling a handful of the states. He is hopeless with the cities, even when putting a venue to the name. He thinks that maybe they’re on their way to Jacksonville. They’ve got a day off before their next show, and he knows that they’re to spend it in Florida.

“I love you, too,” says Ashton, immediately.

There isn’t even room for the space of a breath between their declarations. It is as if Ashton couldn’t bear the thought of Michael believing Ashton doesn’t love him. Michael’s heart skips a beat in his chest like it always does when Ashton is so fearlessly candid. In the next second, guilt chases back after him. He swallows against the lump that rises in the back of his throat. He flexes his hand against Ashton’s stomach. The metal of his ring glints in the low-lighted darkness.

“Sometimes, I think I don’t deserve you,” admits Michael.

It is the closest to telling the truth he can get right now. It is practically nothing, but he prays that Ashton hears everything he can’t say. He is a coward. Yet Ashton doesn’t hear anything other than Michael’s age-old self-doubt that resurfaces from time to time. Ashton isn’t perfect. He isn’t super human. It is unfair of Michael to wish he were. He can’t read Michael’s mind. He doesn’t inherently know of Michael’s unfaithfulness. 

“You’re like the sky, Michael, and I am nothing more than the stars. I am the one who doesn’t deserve you.”

Ashton kisses Michael likes he means it—like Michael is infinity, unending, and Ashton himself is nothing more than dying balls of light. Ashton’s kiss tastes like a promise of forever that Michael doesn’t deserve, but Michael opens himself up and feeds into it. Truthfully, it is easier than the alternative. It is easier than opening his mouth right now and admitting that he kissed Calum and that, given the change, he might want to again.

Engaged people don’t lust after others. Michael wants nothing more than to be Ashton’s forever—except he would kind of like to be Calum’s forever, too. He can’t have both, so he will cling to what he has with Ashton, because Ashton is a kind, gentle soul who loves Michael despite the darkness in his heart and because Michael promised himself to Ashton first.

Still, though, as Michael’s lips dance against Ashton’s like they’re meant to be there, Michael’s traitorous brain doesn’t rest, and a familiar, forbidden declaration echoes in Michael’s mind: _Love you, Mike. Love you like the stars love the sky._

 

Michael wakes up sweating the next morning, which is to be expected since he shared his tiny bunk with Ashton. The air conditioner on the bus works well enough, but it does little to combat the sticky Southern heat that seems to grow thicker in the air the farther south down the eastern American coast they drive.

They’re in Jacksonville, according to the map on Michael’s phone. After an all night drive, they pull up to their overnight hotel early in the morning. Michael is looking forward to sleeping in an actual bed where he and Ashton have all of the room in the world to stretch out their limbs without fearing they might fall into the floor. For now, though, Michael settles for jostling Ashton awake.

“C’mon, we’re at the hotel,” says Michael.

Ashton is slow to wake up, blinking his eyes rapidly until they adjust to the light streaming in through the doorway to the bunks. Luke had left it open. He is always eager to leave the bus behind for the hotel, a rare treat for the band, especially whenever they travel as much as they do in the States.

The early morning sunlight dances golden across Ashton’s handsome face. Michael’s heart skips a beat in his chest. For the first time in days, he forgets about kissing Calum. When Ashton is this beautiful and the morning is this young, there is no room for guilt. Michael wishes he could stop time right now so that he and Ashton could forever be stuck in this perfect little bubble where Ashton look brighter than the sun. Michael always thinks Ashton is brighter than the sun, but there is something ethereal about him right now.

Michael leans back into the bunk and presses his lips against Ashton’s, and he never wants to pull away. He would gladly spend the rest of forever kissing Ashton. He can’t, though. After the security team, the band is always the first to head into the hotel for safety reasons. The crew is eager to get off the bus and into a building that doesn’t move beneath their feet. Michael hates to keep them waiting.

“We can waste the day away in bed, you and me,” says Michael.

He pulls back just enough to speak. His lips brush against Ashton’s. He wants to kiss Ashton again, but he knows that if he gives into the temptation right now, he won’t ever stop kissing Ashton, and then the tour crew will be very unhappy with the hold up. The crew already works so, so hard for the band. The least Michael can do is resist the urge to kiss Ashton for the rest of forever until the two of them are alone in their hotel room.

“You really know how to win a man over,” says Ashton, grinning fondly up at Michael. “Might make a man wanna keep you forever.”

“Thought you already did,” says Michael, laughing. “Or is this all for show?”

He holds up his left hand and points to his ring finger where Ashton’s ring rests just below his knuckle. It fits him like it has always been there, and Michael likes the idea that it will be there forever. Ashton likes that idea, too. His eyes light up, and he looks at the ring with so much love in his gaze that Michael feels the urge to hide away from the intensity of it.

Slowly, Ashton reaches out and draws Michael’s hand to his lips. He presses a gentle kiss right against the ring. His lips are warm where they touch Michael’s bare skin, and Ashton looks up to meet Michael’s gaze. Michael shivers, so overcome with love that his knees threaten to buckle beneath him.

“I want to keep you longer than forever,” says Ashton, solemnly. “I love you so damn much, Michael Clifford.”

Michael’s heart skips a beat in his chest, but the moment is ruined by a crash from the back lounge. Michael jumps, startled, and whips around, his hand still trapped between Ashton’s.

In the next second, Calum stumbles into the bunk area. His eyes are bloodshot red, like he hasn’t slept a single wink all night. From his hand dangles a mostly drank bottle of bourbon whiskey, the good kind that Luke convinced Ashton to buy somewhere between New York and North Carolina as part of the continuous celebrations following Ashton’s proposal—or at least that was Luke’s claim, but Luke has always enjoyed a good bourbon, so Michael is pretty sure Luke was just buttering Ashton up to get a good drink in the States, where he isn’t legally of age to buy it himself.

“Have you been drinking?” demands Ashton, letting go of Michael’s hand so that he can use his own to push himself out of the bunk. He lands on his feet in the tiny hallway next to Michael. The pair of them block Calum’s exit. “Why have you been drinking?”

“’S none of yer concern,” slurs Calum.

He sways on his feet, but he staggers up the hallway with determination. When he reaches the gate that is Michael and Ashton, he tries to bodily push through them, but sobriety isn’t on his side. He stumbles back on his own unsteady feet and is only saved from falling on his ass by Ashton, who grabs his shoulder to keep him upright. The bottle of alcohol swings dangerously in his fist. If it were anywhere near full, it would spill over the top.

“It is my concern,” counters Ashton, strict with Calum like he is with any of his band mates when they are this drunk. Typically, Ashton only has to take this stance late at night when the entire band has gone out to the local bar for a few rounds after a successful show. It isn’t at all normal to need to be stern with a drunken band mate first thing in the morning. “We were supposed to check out Jacksonville together. You totally ditched me in New York.”

“Not m’problem.”

“It is your problem!” huffs Ashton, clearly more offended than he has ever been by one of his band mates—by one of his most favorite best friends. “Dammit, Cal. What the hell is wrong with you?”

Calum blinks, the movement impaired by the alcohol strumming through his veins. His gaze darts to Michael’s, and Michael’s heart stops beating in his chest at the dead glint shining back at him. Drunk Calum isn’t so easy at hiding his emotions as sober Calum is, and the heartbreak is right here plain to see on his face. Michael wonders if drunk Calum is going to spill the awful secret of their kiss right here, right now.

But Calum doesn’t. He looks back at Ashton, and his heartbreak seals over into something much worse. It becomes drunken anger. Michael takes an involuntary step back, his shoulder colliding against Ashton’s.

“It’s you—you’re what’s wrong with me,” spits Calum. He is drunk, but there is a strength to his voice that emphasizes the truth of his words. He looks vicious, his eyes wide and his teeth bared like a wild animal fighting its way out of a trap. “If weren’t for you—fucking hell. You’ve got everything going for you, don’t you? Yet you can’t just let somebody fucking fall apart without it being _your concern_. You know what? Why don’t you take your damn concern and shove it up your ass.”

“Why are you being such a—” begins Ashton, but Calum, not finished, cuts him off.

“Oh, wait. I’m sorry. There isn’t room for your concern, because your head is already shoved so far up your ass—”

“That’s it,” snaps Ashton, rare to lose his cool in the face of any of his band mates.

He steps forward into Calum’s face, grabbing for the bottle of liquor in Calum’s hand. Calum is too slow in his inebriated state to stop Ashton, though he gives it a good attempt when he slaps after Ashton’s hand. The slaps lands clumsy and off-center, Calum’s fingers slipping off Ashton’s arm as quickly as they land. Ashton throws the bottle of liquor to the floor at their feet. It shatters and spills the tiny amount of liquid Calum hadn’t drank all over the carpet.

“You’ve had enough,” states Ashton. “I don’t know what the hell your problem is with me, but you’re drunk off your ass, and you’ve had enough.”

“Fuck you,” glares Calum.

“Yeah, sure, we can work on that at the hotel,” says Ashton, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Now, can you make it there yourself, or do I need to hold your hand like you’re a child?”

Calum folds his arms across his chest, seething in his drunkenness. He shakes his head and takes a step back from Ashton. The distance between them might as well be the entire universe, as empty as it is. It doesn’t last very long. Ashton crowds right back into Calum’s space, minding the broken glass in the floor.

“Well? What is it?” demands Ashton.

Calum meets Michael’s gaze over Ashton’s shoulder, but when he speaks, it is to Ashton.

“You’ve already taken everything else from me. Can’t you just leave me my self-pity and bourbon?”

Ashton frowns. He glances over his shoulder at Michael, who, underneath the sudden scrutiny, stumbles back a step. Michael’s heart leaps to his throat. The guilt settles in the empty spot in his chest. Ashton turns back to Calum.

“How much have you had to drink, exactly?” he asks, much softer than he has thus far spoken. His voice is almost a caress across the space separating him from Calum. “You’re my best friend. I’d never take anything from you.”

Calum snorts. He probably means it to be derisive, but, as drunk as he is, it only comes out as pathetic. He looks away from Michael to turn his bloodshot eyes on Ashton. His earlier anger is gone. Left in its place is breath-stopping, heartbroken emptiness.

“Still, you ended up with everything and left me with nothing.”

Michael’s heart shatters right where it is in his throat.

 

Calum deflates after that, giving into the exhaustion that comes along with copious amounts of alcohol. The wobbliness of his gait suggests that the bottle of bourbon wasn’t his first liquor of the day. His drunkenness makes him pliable underneath Ashton’s direction. Together, Ashton and Michael manage to get Calum off the bus and up to his hotel room without too much trouble.

Ashton carefully strips Calum down to his boxers then puts him face down in bed. Meanwhile, Michael drags the empty trashcan next to the bed so that Calum won’t have to get up for the toilet should he need to vomit. With the amount of liquor sloshing around in Calum’s stomach, vomiting is an almost, unfortunate guarantee.

Before they leave Calum to sleep off the alcohol, Ashton leaves a couple of pain killer tablets and a cup of water straight from the tap in the bathroom on the bedside table next to Calum’s head. From the doorway to the hotel room, Michael watches Ashton carry on worrying over Calum. It is a heartwarming sight.

If Michael ignores the fact that he is engaged to Ashton and Calum is nothing more than a good friend, he can almost imagine that this is Ashton taking care of a lover. When Ashton is finally satisfied that Calum will sleep through most of the day, he runs his knuckles along the curve of Calum’s cheek like he likes to do to Michael right before they fall asleep tangled together at night. Michael has to try very hard to keep from getting too caught up in the forbidden fantasy that maybe this could be a reality—that maybe Ashton could love Calum as much as he loves Michael, and the three of them could be together forever.

Things like that don’t happen in real life. They don’t. Fiancés don’t go around kissing their best friends and then suggesting a threesome life partner to the man they’re going to marry.

 

As promised, Ashton and Michael laze away the day in bed in their shared hotel room. They are at the point in their career where everybody can have their own room, but neither Ashton nor Michael sees the point in throwing away money on a fourth room when the two of them are going to share anyway.

The room is nice, as all that they stay in are. They hardly ever stay in hotel rooms when they’re on the road. The bed is stark white and fluffy. The pillows are equally so. It is Florida, so there is a near-constant scent of ocean water stained into the sheets. Salty smell aside, the bed is big enough for Michael and Ashton to snuggle up on without having to cramp into a tiny space, and that makes it all the much better.

Michael abandons the pillows in favor of resting his head on Ashton’s chest so that he can hear the beat of Ashton’s heart. Ashton runs his hand up and down Michael’s back. It soothing as it always it, and it lulls Michael into an easy sleep where he dreams that he can love Ashton and Calum and they can love each other and guilt isn’t threatening to swallow Michael whole.

The dreams don’t last forever.

Luke comes knocking on the door at half past nine. Michael groggily gets out of bed and pads across the floor to let Luke in, even though he knows for a fact that Luke has a spare key to this room. They all have spare keys to each others’ rooms. More than likely, Luke is hesitant to walk in on Ashton and Michael having sex with one another. In a band with as little boundaries as their own, Luke has seen more than his fair share of Michael and Ashton’s intimacy. The knocking now is more of a ghost of courtesy than anything.

“Wanna go write?” asks Luke before Michael even has the door fully open.

Michael stands naked except for his boxers. The air from the hallway is cool against his bare skin. Luke doesn’t seem to mind the near indecency.

“Now?”

“As good of a time as ever, isn’t it?” says Luke, grinning. “Put a shirt on. There’s this epic spot on the roof.”

“Is that allowed?”

Luke shrugs.

“Since when have you cared? You can see forever in all directions up there. I figured it might help you out of your songwriting funk.”

“I’m not in a funk,” says Michael, though that is a lie. He is totally in a funk. “Just the other day I was talking with Calum about how I was going to write an ode to your smelly feet. It’s going to be our next big hit.”

Luke rolls his eyes. He shoulders past Michael into the room where he makes a bee line for the suitcases laying on top of the chest of drawers. He grabs a t-shirt and a pair of shorts from the farthest one to the left, probably knowing they actually belong to Ashton. He throws them at Michael.

“Get dressed. We’re going up to the roof,” he commands Michael before turning to Ashton, who is still laying in bed. “I’m stealing your fiancé for a while. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Make sure you feed him twice a day, and limit his exposure to direct sunlight as much as possible. I think he’s, like, part vampire,” jokes Ashton. He smiles at Michael like he doesn’t mean a single unkind word.

“I think ‘part’ is an understatement,” says Luke.

“You’re not making me want to go write a song with you,” says Michael. The effect of his threat is lost, though, as he slips into his shoes. He grabs a keycard off the bedside table where he had abandoned it earlier. He shoves it into the loose pocket of his shorts. After a second of hesitation, he grabs his songwriting journal, too. “Besides, if I were a vampire, the two of you would be the first ones I’d bite just so you’d be stuck with me for all eternity.”

Luke groans, but Ashton grins.

“I’ll take forever with you however I can get it,” says Ashton.

Luke groans again.

“Stop being adorably in love. It’s depressing for the rest of us who aren’t.”

Ashton winces, because as much as Luke is joking, the truth is that he isn’t joking at all. Luke’s history with love isn’t the prettiest thing in the band—in fact, it is probably the ugliest—because Luke is a gentle soul who sees the best in everybody, even when the people that have tricked him into falling in love with them haven’t deserved such a courtesy. After years and years of the same heartbreaking cycle over and over again, it has worn Luke down to the point where he can be equally happy for his best friends’ engagement and severely depressed that he is nowhere near the same point himself.

“You know, there’s this nice girl back in LA who lives in the same apartment complex Cal and I do, maybe I could—”

“I don’t want a nice girl, okay?” interrupts Luke. He grimaces at his rudeness in the next second and stumbles over himself to apologize to Ashton, who had only intended to offer his help. “Sorry, I’m just—I dunno. I don’t want somebody who is ‘nice.’ I want somebody who likes me for who I am and not for the rock star name they can use to get stuff, you know? I want—well, _this_. Like, you and Mike have got it easy. You don’t have to worry about any ulterior motive. It’s not like that for me.”

Michael wonders just how easy he and Ashton really have everything since Michael hasn’t stopped thinking about kissing Calum. Worse than that, he hasn’t stopped _wanting_ to kiss Calum again, either. No, that isn’t anywhere near as bad as somebody pretending to love another person for their own self-advancement, but the guilt twisting in Michael’s heart isn’t the easiest thing to live with.

“C’mon,” says Ashton to Luke, oblivious to Michael’s internal guilt that could change Ashton’s outlook on their relationship. “Your last girlfriend wasn’t all too bad. She never tried to use you to get things.”

“Except back at her ex-boyfriend, and look how perfectly that worked out for her,” says Luke, rolling his eyes despite the twinge of residual heartbreak from this particular memory. “I received a wedding invitation in the mail from her just last week, funnily enough.”

“That’s quick,” says Michael.

It is easier to concentrate on Luke’s horrendous love life than the disaster he is toeing in his own. He pushes aside all thoughts he has of kissing Calum—which are more thoughts than any engaged person should have about somebody other than their fiancé—and focuses instead on this moment before him. His therapist back in Australia had once advised him to take his life one issue at a time, that the future is exactly that: _the future_ , and that there was no sense in worrying about more things than he could face at once.

“That’s odd,” corrects Luke, shooting Michael a dubious look that suggests that should have been Michael’s reaction from the very beginning. “You don’t invite an ex to your wedding—like, that’s some sort of unspoken rule that everyone should adhere to—and you most certainly don’t invite _the_ ex who you used to get back at your future husband.”

“Except she did,” says Michael. He pauses, grinning devilishly at Luke. “Who’s going to be your plus one?”

Luke guffaws, and Ashton breaks down into a fit of laughter. Michael grins over at Ashton, proud that he has made Ashton laugh so easily. Luke sputters around for an appropriate response, so knocked off kilter by Michael’s outrageous question that he is momentarily at a loss for words.

“Nobody!” is the ever-so-eloquent response Luke lands on, his voice thin and squeaky, and Ashton laughs harder.

“You should totally take Ashton up on the offer to set you up with the nice girl from his building, then. I’ve seen her. She’s hot, and she’d make a kick-ass date.”

 “I’m not going to the wedding, Michael!” screeches Luke in a voice that is an entire octave above his typical range. “You’re impossible. I don’t even know why Ashton wants to marry you.”

Calum’s face flashes in Michael’s mind, and Michael’s responding thought is _I don’t either_ as the guilt sets back in its familiar place around his heart. Michael’s grin fades from his lips, despite his best effort to keep it there. He ducks his head to hide his face. Ashton thinks Michael is being shy about their impending nuptials—that he is so happy to be marry Ashton that he can hardly keep himself in check. It is true that Michael is over-the-moon ecstatic to be marrying Ashton, but the weight of the guilt fitted around his heart eats away at him a little more by the passing moment.

“Because he loves me,” says Ashton when Michael himself can’t speak. “And because, if he really wanted to, I’d let him write a song about my feet and then do everything I could to make sure it was our next single.”

Luke sighs, rolling his eyes, and the conversation is right back where it started. Michael pushes away his guilt long enough to smile over Ashton, because he loves Ashton so, so much that sometimes it feels like he might explode trying to hold it all in. Ashton deserves to be loved in such a manner. He deserve the whole universe of love, and Michael wants to give it to him like he has never, ever wanted to do something for another human being… except, maybe, Calum, but Michael shoves that traitorous thought and all of the guilt that comes along with it aside. Ashton deserves better. Michael is going to find a way to give him better.

“I’m writing with Calum and Calum alone on the next album,” says Luke, but the overly fond smile tugging at the corners of his lips belies how happy he actually is for Michael and Ashton. He folds his arms across his chest for show. “He’s nicer to me.”

Ashton and Michael laugh.

 

The path up to the roof involves more hiding behind corners than a route really should. Michael’s earlier question about whether or not they’re allowed to be up there is answered by the amount of times that Luke shoves Michael behind him and commands him to keep quiet via a hand over Michael’s mouth. Michael licks the palm of Luke’s hand the third time it happens. Luke grimaces, but he doesn’t pull his hand away until the hotel employee has rounded the next corner away from them.

“You’re such a child,” mutters Luke underneath his breath.

Michael pretends like he doesn’t hear Luke. It is much more fun to antagonize Luke than it is to admit how thrilling the whole sneaking up to the roof thing actually is. If Michael were to tell Luke that his idea to write up on the roof where they aren’t technically allowed to venture, Luke would be smug for months. Michael doesn’t deal well with Luke’s smugness,.

Still, though, Luke occasionally good ideas. This is probably his best one this entire tour. The panoramic view from rooftop is just as beautiful as Luke had promised. Michael can see forever in all directions, across the bright city on one side and the endless ocean on the other. They settle down on the side of the ocean. They have done their best writing on the shore on the other side of the country, but the Atlantic coast feels just as promising.

“Shall I assume you’ve actually got something this time? Or did you bring your secret journal up here for kicks and giggles?” asks Luke, wasting no time whatsoever.

They prop the door open with an American penny, a trick they had learned the first year they toured with One Direction. Luke has his phone, fully charged, in his pocket just in case they need to make an emergency call to Ashton to come rescue them from a locked door. Hopefully, things won’t come to that.

Luke sits on the edge of the roof, stretched out across the short concrete wall. His right boot hangs over the edge, but they’re too far up for anybody on the ground to spot a black boot against the dark night sky. Michael is seated across from him, still on the wall but a little less confidant about being so near to falling straight his death. It isn’t windy here, thankfully, but one big freak wind gust might knock them both over the edge anyway. Michael clutches his journal close to his chest.

“I may have been a little inspired over the past week or so,” he says. It isn’t a direct answer to Luke’s question, because he isn’t quite sure he wants to share his traitorous thoughts with Luke, even though they are some pretty good lyrics that Michael knows they could possibly spin into their next single.

“About my smelly feet?” asks Luke, grinning.

Michael should and play along. He doesn’t. He studies Luke for a long moment, his hands sweating around the leather of his journal. If Michael can’t show this to Luke—if he can’t show it to his best friend—he can’t show it to the world. He has to remind himself that this is how most songs feel in the beginning when they’re nothing more than words scribble onto a page.

So Michael opens up his journal, flips through the pages until he reaches the last one that has been written on, and hands it over to Luke. There is barely enough light here to make out much detail. Luke drops his gaze to the journal the second it touches his fingertips. Ever so carefully, he takes it from Michael and holds it close to his face so that he can make out the words that stain the lined paper.

The roof is lit by the city below them, so shadows dance across Luke’s face and distort his expression from Michael’s sight. Michael waits an eternity as Luke reads the lyrics Michael’s heart has bled over— _is bleeding over_. He resists the urge to snatch the journal back out of Luke’s hands.

Finally, Luke looks up. He meets Michael’s eyes in the dimly lit darkness of the rooftop. He parts his lips, but he doesn’t speak. Instead, he glances back down at the page, runs his tongue along his bottom lip, then looks back up at Michael.

“It’s about Calum, isn’t it? Calum and Ashton?”

Michael’s heart stutters to a stop. He draws in a gasping breath. He feels like he’s swallowed an entire ton of weights, and they have sunk to the bottom of his stomach.

“How did you—”

Luke shrugs.

“Calum’s been acting weird since the proposal, and the two of you aren’t talking, and he’s got a loose tongue when he is drop dead drunk.”

“So you know…”

“That he kissed you? That he’s beating himself up over it? That neither of you have told Ashton? Yeah.”

Michael sighs. He has to look away from Luke’s gaze, because Luke is doing that thing that he always does when he sees too far inside of Michael’s mind for Michael’s own good. Michael prides himself at being good at hiding things, but he can never, ever hide anything from Luke, much less the traitorous thoughts running rampant through his mind, spreading guilt through his heart like a disease.

He can’t admit to Luke that he _liked_ kissing Calum or that he would _like_ to kiss Calum again. He can’t, because admitting it to Luke means saying it out loud, and saying it out loud means that these feelings are real. It means that he loves Calum as much as he loves Ashton, and that isn’t fair to anybody, especially not Ashton who didn’t ask for a fiancé with one foot out of the door—not that Michael would ever leave Ashton, but the sentiment is the same.

Michael can’t admit this, yet Luke seems to know anyway. Luke always seems to know the darkest parts of Michael. It should be scary—terrifying, even—but Luke always loves Michael just the same as he always has.

“You’re in love with Calum,” says Luke, as casually as he might announce his new favorite song by some band nobody but him has heard of. Luke likes all different types of music, more than the others do, and he likes making Michael feel comfortable in his own skin even more.

Michael lets out a breath. He could deny it, but Luke wouldn’t believe him.

“Yeah.”

“I thought so,” says Luke, quietly, because he knows that Michael needs to hear somebody else’s voice right now.

“Does that make me a bad person?” asks Michael.

He doesn’t dare look at Luke. He keeps his gaze trained on the horizon, though, from this far away in the darkness, he can’t tell the difference between the ocean and the sky. It is easier to gaze upon the unknown than to see the revulsion in his best friends’ eyes.

“Since when does love make anybody a bad person?” prompts Luke.

 _Since it can break Ashton’s heart_ , Michael thinks but doesn’t say. He definitely can’t say that, even though Luke can probably read the response on Michael’s face anyway. If he says that, it might be real, and he never, ever wants to break Ashton’s heart. He would much sooner walk naked and barefoot through a fire than to hurt Ashton.  

“D’you think it’s like a sickness? Like a disease?” asks Michael, because it has to be. There is no other explanation for why he loves Calum as much as he loves Ashton—or there is, but that explanation doesn’t reflect good on Michael. He promised to marry Ashton. He shouldn’t go around realizing he is in love with Calum and that he wants Calum just as much. “Like am I cursed or something? That I fall in love with every hot man I work with? That I play music with?”

Luke barks out a laugh. The sound is stark against the serenity on the rooftop where the noise of the city doesn’t quite float up this high. It is late enough in the evening that most people are home with their families, yet, at the same time, it is early enough that most people haven’t yet left their homes to go out clubbing. It is a perfect interlude, and Luke’s laughter stains the calmness. 

“Are you saying you’re in love with me, too?” he asks, not unkindly. He is grinning from ear-to-ear, eager for Michael’s response. “Is this why you wanted to know who my plus one is for that wedding?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Michael, instinctively, but then he freezes. A horrible thought strikes him. His stomach flip flops. He looks back to meet Luke’s eyes again. “What if I am? D’you think it’s just a thing? Like, d’you think that I’m forever doomed to fall for anybody that can play an amazing guitar rip?”

“Ashton plays the drums,” says Luke, as if that is the most important part of Michael’s spiel.

“Forget that,” says Michael, waving his hand as if he is brushing aside the topic. His mind races, traitorous thoughts swirling around until nothing makes sense, and Michael kind of wants to vomit all over the concrete rooftop. “What if I really am sick in the head or something? Like, what if it’s a compulsion? What if I have to kiss the people I work with? What if that’s a thing? I love Ashton. I do! But I _kissed_ Calum—and—and I _liked_ it. What does—what does that mean?”

“That Calum’s a really good kisser?” suggests Luke, and he isn’t taking this topic of conversation nearly as serious as Michael would like him to. He is still grinning ear-to-ear, like he knows the punch line to the world’s greatest joke.

“You’re being super unhelpful here,” says Michael, flourishing a pout. Luke is always weak for Michael’s pouts. “I’m in the middle of a crisis, and the best you’ve got for me is how good Cal is at kissing—which we both already knew, because Cal is one of those people who has _references_.”

“I don’t think Kelsea Smith from year ten actually counts as a reference,” says Luke.

“He’s updated his references since then—God, why are we even talking about the people Calum has kissed?”

“Because you are now one of them?” suggests Luke, ever-so-helpfully.

Michael groans. He contemplates throwing himself off the rooftop of this building right now just to escape the guilt strangling his heart. Luke doesn’t seem to pick up on the problem that Michael is facing. Luke doesn’t seem to care that Michael loves Ashton but kissed Calum and would like to kiss Calum again. Luke doesn’t seem to think that it is really that big of a problem.

Except, Luke isn’t completely heartless, and it is cruel of Michael to think he is.

“You know, you could easily figure out if you want to bang everybody you work with or just Calum and Ashton,” says Luke a few moments later.

Michael snorts. He knows his problem isn’t that he is cursed to fall in love with everybody he works with. His problem is that he would like to kiss Calum right now, and Ashton doesn’t deserve such an unfaithful fiancé.

“Oh, and how’s that?” asks Michael, because, despite how unrelated it is, he is curious.

“You could kiss me.”

 Michael laughs, because the idea of kissing Luke is funny—and because it is easier to laugh than to question whether or not he really wants to kiss Luke as much as he wants to kiss Ashton and Calum. He doesn’t need another crisis. He has already been unfair to Ashton by admitting to himself just how much he wants to kiss Calum. He doesn’t need to be any more cruel, if, deep down, Michael does indeed want to kiss Luke.

“C’mon,” says Luke, frowning almost as if he is offended that Michael has found the idea of kissing him so laughable. “It’s a good idea. Kiss me, and if you feel nothing, then you’re just fucked for Cal and Ash. What have you got to lose?”

 _Everything, if I like it_ , thinks Michael. He doesn’t dare say that out loud, because, as long as Michael doesn’t think too hard about it, maybe Luke is right. Maybe Michael just needs to make sure that the kiss he shared with Calum wasn’t some kind of fluke—that maybe first kisses will always get Michael’s mind whizzing around and that maybe, after the newness wears off, they aren’t anything compared to the kisses he shares with Ashton.

Surely, kissing Luke is the answer. If he likes it, he just likes first kisses. If he doesn’t like it, he knows that he likes kissing Calum, and then he’ll bully Luke into helping him learn how to not want to kiss Calum. Really, this can’t go wrong.

“All right then,” says Michael.

Luke blinks, surprised.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Kiss me.”

Luke frowns again.

“Is this how you buttered Ashton up? ‘Cause I don’t know why he kissed you, and if this is the tactic you took on Calum, too, then I don’t understand how—”

Just to shut Luke up, Michael kisses him. It is a challenge in the beginning, Michael’s lips crashing against Luke’s like they are going to war. It doesn’t last like that. Luke melts into the kiss as soon as his mind catches up to what is happening, and he commandeers it, bringing his hand up to cup Michael’s cheek like the caress of a lover. Michael backs off and lets Luke take control, because Luke is demanding it anyway. Michael’s toes curl in his shoes. He swears fireworks dance behind his eyelids, and he isn’t sure exactly when he shut his eyes, but he doesn’t care, either.

When they break apart, they pant against each other. Their foreheads are pressed together. If Michael wanted to, he could lean back in and capture Luke’s lips in another searing kiss.

He doesn’t. Luke kisses like his life depends on it, and it is hot and passionate and unbelievably sweet at the same time. He is good at it. There is no sense in denying that—Michael couldn’t even begin to try to deny it—but, in the end, kissing Luke is just that: a kiss.

“Well?” asks Luke, breathless.

Michael doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know if he is supposed to let Luke down easily—if maybe Luke, unlike Michael, would like to do that again—so he takes a long moment before he responds. He makes a show of catching his breath to mask his hesitation.

“I’m not cursed.”

Luke laughs.

“You have your answer then.”

Yeah, Michael does, but he kind of had it before he kissed Luke, so this whole experiment hasn’t really done anything except prove to Michael that Luke is one hell of a kisser.

 

They don’t end up working on the song. They try—mostly, Luke tries—but Michael isn’t with it. After the kissing experiment, the guilt in Michael’s heart increases tenfold, and he can hardly concentrate on anything that isn’t the memory of how Calum’s lips felt pressed against his own only a few nights ago.

When Luke suggests that they work on the song another day, Michael gratefully agrees. He does feel bad that they haven’t accomplished anything on the rooftop, despite the perfect setting for a songwriting session. He snaps a picture of the lyrics he had scribbled down and sends it to Luke via text, since it isn’t Luke’s fault that they have nothing to show for the evening. Now, both Luke and Michael can work on the song until they can find the time to work together again.

“Maybe you should just tell Ashton,” suggests Luke as they leave the rooftop. Neither one of them are actually ready to leave the serene setting, but the hour of the night is late. It has already been such a long day that they’re both exhausted and ready for bed. “Talk things out with him.”

Luke pushes open the rooftop door. The penny falls to the top step. He bends down to pick it up then slips it into his pocket. They might need it tomorrow night if they sneak back up here. It is rare that they stay in one place for too long, but they’re scheduled two nights at this hotel. Even if nobody wants to work on any song writing tomorrow night, the view from the rooftop alone is enough of a reason to consider sneaking up here.

“You think I haven’t thought about that?” asks Michael, because he has, but he has been too much of a coward to broach the subject. “I can’t break his heart. I _cheated_ on him, _and_ I’ve kept this a secret for _days_!”

“Calum kissed you,” says Luke. “Technically, you didn’t cheat on Ashton.”

“Besides, Calum is Ashton’s best friend,” says Michael, as if Luke had never spoken. The technicalities aren’t really important. What is important is that Michael and Calum kissed and that Michael would like to kiss Calum again and that Michael hasn’t told Ashton about either of those truths. Guilt churns in the pit of Michael’s stomach. “I can’t ruin their friendship.”

Their footsteps echo in the stairwell, as do their voices. Neither bother to keep quiet. It would be a pointless waste of effort. There is nobody else here at this time of night. Anybody who would need to ascend the floors of the hotel are more likely to use the convenient elevators located right next to the main entrance instead of the bland concrete steps. 

“Once again,” says Luke, with a tinge of frustration to his voice, “ _Calum_ kissed you. That is on him, and, yeah, you could have told Ashton when it first happened, but you didn’t. You should tell him now. He deserves to know.”

Michael sighs. Luke is right.

“Yeah, he does,” agrees Michael. He glances over at Luke as they walk down another set of stairs. He runs his hand along the railing in case he misses one of the steps. “I’m really fucking up this whole fiancé thing, aren’t I?”

Luke snorts, shaking his head like Michael doesn’t understand anything. Michael would feel offended if not for the amount of guilt that is racking his body. He doesn’t have room to feel anything else.

“Ashton loves you more than anything else in the entire universe. You’re not fucking anything up,” says Luke. “Just sit down together and talk everything out, okay? It’ll be all right.”

“How can you be so sure?” asks Michael. “If I were him—”

Luke stops on the next landing. This is their floor, but he makes no move toward the door that leads into the hallway. He turns to face Michael instead. He looks more serious than Michael has ever known him to be.

“You love him just as much as he loves you. Don’t you think that you’d still love him if he came to you and said that Calum kissed him?”

Luke doesn’t need Michael to answer the question. It is rhetorical. He offers Michael one last friendly smile then opens the door to their hallway. A security guard nods at them when he recognizes who they are.

Michael bites his lips together as he silently follows Luke down the hallway. He has to admit that Luke does have a point. There is nothing in the entire world that Ashton could do that would ever make Michael stop loving him, much less something as trivial as a kiss initiated by a drunk friend. Michael hopes beyond all hopes that Luke is right: that Ashton loves Michael so much that he never wants to let Michael go, no matter what.

 

The lights are turned out when Michael enters his hotel room. He pads in quietly, his journal safely tucked underneath his left arm. He thinks Ashton is asleep. Ashton doesn’t otherwise make it a habit to sit in the dark.

“When were you going to tell me?”

Michael jumps, swearing underneath his breath. His heart pounds in his chest. It is only Ashton seated on the edge of their king sized bed, his face illuminated by the light from his phone. It casts shadows across his face. Michael spies a frown on his lips. Ashton looks ages older right here before him.

“Huh?” asks Michael, unintelligibly.

His heart is pounding so loudly in his ears that he isn’t sure he heard Ashton correctly. If he did, though, he doesn’t understand what Ashton might mean. Michael tells Ashton every single thing that crosses his mind, even the really bad, dirty jokes that nobody should be subjected to, and the only thing Michael has kept from Ashton is the one thing that Michael hopes Ashton isn’t referring to.

But luck isn’t on Michael’s side.

Luck is never on Michael’s side.

In the next second, as Ashton’s tongue wraps around familiar, forbidden words, Michael’s heart begins to shatter in his chest.

“ _I’ve been thinking to myself, I’m in love with someone else. But you’re the one for me. I swear it, can’t you see. I’ve been lying to my friends. Because I don’t want this to end. I love you so much, it’s true, yet I can’t help but to love him, too._ ”

Michael’s knees buckle underneath him. He has to reach out for the nearest wall to keep himself up right, because he has never, ever heard Ashton’s voice sound so dull or so dead. He never wants to hear it like that again, either, because it turns the shattering pieces of Michael’s heart straight to dust, and he is left gasping for his breath.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” repeats Ashton, quietly.

He may as well be screaming the question for as well as Michael hears him. Michael doesn’t know what to say in the beginning. He shakes his head, horror washing over him like a tidal wave.

“How did you—”

Ashton snorts. It is an unkind sound. He turns his phone around so that it is facing Michael. It is blinding in the darkness of the room, but Michael’s eyes adjust quickly enough, and he nearly chokes on his next breath. There on the screen is the answer to Michael’s question: the picture of the song from his journal that Michael had messaged Luke earlier… only, in his haste to leave the rooftop and the secrets he had spilled, he had accidentally sent the picture to the entire band via their group chat.

“It’s about Calum, isn’t it?” asks Ashton, but it comes out sounding more like a statement than an actual question. “I mean, of course, it is—unless you’ve gone around kissing Luke behind my back, too.”

Michael winces. He thinks of the kiss he had shared with Luke only a little while ago, but he doesn’t think that counts. He kissed Luke for purely educational reasons—he had to know if he enjoyed kissing whoever kissed him or if there was something about Calum in particular that made Michael crave him like his lungs craved oxygen.

It takes Michael’s overworked brain a solid minute to realize the biggest kicker of Ashton’s accusation.

“How do you know I kissed Calum?”

Ashton smiles. Visible only in the dim light reflecting off his phone, the smiles sets unevenly on his lips. It looks more like a farce of a grin than anything genuine should. It makes Michael’s toes curl in his shoes.

“Because Calum likes to kiss and tell—even more so when he’s drunk off his ass like he is right now.”

Michael’s mouth goes dry. He tries to swallow. He chokes instead.

“Ash—”

“You weren’t going to tell me, were you?” asks Ashton, but, once again, the question is more of a statement, and his voice sounds as dead as Michael feels inside. “Dammit, Michael. I wanted to marry you, and you go off and kiss Calum. What the hell?”

 _Wanted_.

It echoes in Michael’s mind over and over and over again until he tastes it bitter in the back of his mouth. He tightens his hand into a fist against the wall, his fingernails scrapping across the cheap paint, and he swears that the floor might disappear underneath him at any moment. This is the end of the world. It is, because the word _wanted_ is past tense, and that means that Michael is losing Ashton.

The ring around Michael’s finger sears, but Michael curls his fist even tighter around it.  

“He—he _kissed_ me,” says Michael.

This is the weakest he has ever felt in his life. Ashton can make him feel bigger than a mountain sometimes, but, right now, he feels smaller than the speck of dirt on the bottom of his shoe. Michael thinks he might cry. His eyes burn with tears, but he doesn’t let them fall. He can’t. Because if he cries, this is real. If he cries, he really is losing Ashton, and he can’t lose Ashton. He can’t.

“Tell me, Michael,” prompts Ashton, eerily quiet in that same dead voice. There is a tilt to his tone, though, that suggests he knows the answer even before he poses the question. “If Calum were to kiss you again, would you kiss him back?”

Michael’s tongue wraps around the word _no_ , but he hesitates before he lets it fall, and that in and of itself is a good enough response. Michael can’t lie to Ashton. He can’t, because Ashton deserves better than dirty lies clouding their love. So Michael can’t say no, but he can’t say _yes_ , either—or even a middle-grounded _maybe_ —because that would break Ashton’s heart, and Michael never, ever wants to break Ashton’s heart.

The thing is that, yes, Michael would kiss Calum again—that Michael would go as far as to say that he _wants_ to kiss Calum again—but he wouldn’t do it at the expense of Ashton. Nothing is more important to him than Ashton.

“I thought so,” says Ashton, when Michael takes too long to let the word _no_ fall tumultuously from his lips.

Ashton doesn’t sound so surprised by Michael’s response or, rather, lack thereof. Instead, he sounds detached, like he has spent _years_ expecting Michael to admit that he wants to kiss Calum rather than Ashton—like he has wasted away his time waiting for Michael to choose Calum over him. Either way, Michael feels sick at his stomach.

“I love you, Ashton,” says Michael, a last ditch effort to make things right.

“But you love him, too,” says Ashton. He waves his phone around like an illuminated banner of truth. “You said it yourself.”

“I still want to marry you.”

Ashton sighs, long and drawn out like he is readying himself to break Michael’s heart. It is a useless precaution. Michael’s heart is already shattered into dust in the floor at their feet. Ashton couldn’t possibly hurt him anymore than Michael’s own stupidity—his own carelessness—already has. Michael should have told Ashton the truth from the very beginning. Ashton deserves to have heard the truth from the very beginning.

“I’m not sure I do,” mutters Ashton, though his voice carries across the room as if it has been projected from a megaphone.

Michael draws in a gasping breath, but he chokes on it as his lungs refused to expand. His entire body shuts down. Numbness rushes across his bloodstream, settling into his soul. Michael faintly wonders if it is possible to carry on living with his heart shattered to dust.

“What d’you—what do you mean?” asks Michael, and he has to force out the words. They taste like acid on his tongue. His chest feels like it is collapsing in on itself. He vaguely think _this can’t be happening_ —yet it most unmistakably is. “Ash?”

“I mean that maybe you shouldn’t sleep here tonight,” says Ashton.

He can’t look at Michael while he says it. He lets his phone fall to his lap, the screen going black and leaving the room in darkness lit only by the faint light streaming in through the crack between the curtains. This is how the end of the world looks: dark and empty and heartbreakingly lonely.

“I mean that maybe I shouldn’t marry you, and maybe you shouldn’t marry me—not if you want to kiss Calum as much as you do.”

“But I want to kiss you a thousand times more!” gasps Michael, because he does. He would like to spend the rest of his life kissing Ashton and doing nothing else. “I swear, I do!”

For a moment, everything is silent. It is like the calm before the storm—or maybe after the storm—and Michael holds his breath. There isn’t anything left to do other than to breathe and to watch his world fall apart right before his very eyes.

“I’m not sure that’s enough, Michael. You have no idea how much I wish it were.”

 

_Part III – Ashton_

When the door snaps shut behind Michael, Ashton wants to run after him, but Ashton doesn’t. Instead, he sits stock still on the edge of the bed with his phone in his lap. He feels sick at his stomach. He is glad that the room was dark when he told Michael to leave, or else he would have never been able to utter the words.

It sets in, then, what he has just done: he has just kicked Michael out. He has just broken Michael’s heart. He has just told Michael that he didn’t know if he wanted to marry him.

Ashton’s own heart aches so badly he thinks it might leap out of his chest. He hates himself in that moment like he has never despised anything in his entire life. He should run after Michael. He should, because he broke Michael’s heart. He never, ever wants to hurt Michael, yet he just did.

The reason Ashton broke Michael’s heart is really such a petty thing. Ashton likes Calum. He does. He lives with Calum when they’re not on tour, and he explores cities with Calum at his side when Michael, and Luke, prefers the serenity of peace that relaxing on the bus or in the hotel room brings. Calum is Ashton’s best friend.

The thing is that Michael kissing Calum isn’t all that surprising, and Ashton can’t really blame either of them for it. Back before Ashton asked Michael out, Ashton himself had always thought that Calum and Michael would end up together. When Michael agreed to go out with Ashton, a part of Ashton always waited for the other shoe to drop. He always knew that some way, somehow _MichaelandAshton_ would morph into _MichaelandCalum_ …

Ashton just hadn’t expected it to hurt this much.

He hadn’t expected it to feel like the entire world was on fire. Or like all of the air in the universe had been stolen away. He hadn’t expected that his heart could shatter into hundreds of thousands of millions of pieces.

That’s when the first tear falls.

Ashton prides himself on being a put-together individual. He is always punctual. He works hard at PR, and he plays his heart out to thousands of screaming fans every night on the road. He does his best to live every day to its fullest, and he doesn’t take any moment for granted. He tries to see the good in the bad. He tries to keep his emotions in check.

But right now, heartbroken over breaking Michael’s heart, Ashton cries his eyes out. He bawls like a baby. It is disgusting. Snot streams from his nose. Tears fall like raindrops to his lap. He cries so much his head begins to pound, and he cries even more then.

Time passes. Irrelevantly, it passes. Ashton doesn’t move from his spot, though his butt grows numb, and his head aches from crying, and he could do with a nice long and hot shower. So much time passes that the darkness in the room begins to dissipate as dawn sets in. Ashton hasn’t slept a wink, but he needs to, because they have a show that night.

He doesn’t go to sleep, but, eventually, he does force himself to move from his spot on the bed. Because he isn’t sleepy, he may as well drown himself in food—because beer is out of the question, given that Ashton has no desire to bang on the drums tonight while his head is pounding from a hangover. He orders a room service pizza.

While he waits, he reaches for his phone. He tells himself it is so that he can check Twitter, not so he can see if Michael has texted him or not. There isn’t a single message waiting on him. The pang that shoots through his heart destroys his self-told lie. His thumb hovers above Michael’s contact. For a split second, he almost presses it. He almost calls Michael to beg him to come back.

He doesn’t. He opens up Twitter instead. He tweets out, “I trust my actions, I trust heartbreaks and loss, I trust I am progressing as the person I am today for better.”

Then, almost in the same minute, he types out another tweet, “My thoughts whilst waiting on a room service pizza at 5 am… I don’t trust those actions at all.”

He wants nothing more than to chase Michael down, apologize, and kiss Michael until the end of eternity, but he knows he shouldn’t. Michael is in love with Calum, and that hurts, and Ashton needs some time to himself. Maybe Michael needs some time to himself, too, to figure out that he would be better off with Calum than with Ashton. As much as Michael says he loves Ashton with his whole heart and as much as Michael may mean it, Michael has known Calum longer than he has Ashton. Maybe Ashton has just been in the way this whole time.

Insane, jealous thoughts swirl through Ashton’s head like the gag reel of a comedy movie. He can’t stop them. He can’t figure out why it only took a proposal and a few bottles of beer for Calum to kiss Michael—for Calum to try to steal away the one thing Ashton cherishes more than anything in the entire universe.

Even more than that, Ashton doesn’t understand why Michael didn’t tell him about the kiss from the very beginning. Calum was drunk. He was overwhelmed with repressed emotions and the idea that he had lost Michael forever, so he kissed Michael, yet there was no reason for Michael to keep that a secret. Michael pushed him away, and he slammed the door in Calum’s face, and, that night, he clung to Ashton like his life depended on it as Ashton fucked him nice and slow.

But Michael didn’t tell Ashton about the kiss. He didn’t over the next few days, either. Ashton was left to find out about it from a drunk and crying Calum. Ashton was left open to be blind-sighted by Michael’s accidental picture message containing the confirmation that Ashton had feared every moment since Calum had let the secret slip—that Michael was in love with Calum.

There was no other reason Michael would have kept such an occurrence quiet. Michael and Ashton tell each other everything—or Ashton thought they did. Now, Ashton isn’t so sure. Michael didn’t tell him about the kiss. He didn’t tell Ashton about maybe having feelings for Calum, either, and Ashton feels like he is left in the dust, three steps behind everyone else.

It is a disconcerting notion, the idea that Michael didn’t trust Ashton enough—that Michael didn’t _love_ Ashton enough—to tell him the truth from the very beginning. Sure, it may have developed into an argument. Ashton may have said some things he didn’t mean, because that is what he does when he is hurt. He lashes out. He hates himself for it, especially when he does it to Michael, but sometimes the hurt aches so much in his chest that he has to let it out, and he doesn’t realize until it is far too late that hurting Michael only doubles the ache in his own heart.

If Michael had told him the truth from the very beginning, they might have fought, and Ashton may have said some things he didn’t mean, and Michael might have shot back everything he took, but Ashton would have been comforted by a certainty that he has never, ever, not even once, doubted until the moment he received the picture confirmation of Calum’s spilled secret. Ashton would have known where he stood with Michael, because he would have stood exactly where he always has: right next to him as the love of his life, as the man he trusts, and as the man he will be with forever.

Now, though, Ashton’s entire world has been flipped upside down. He doesn’t have that certainty. He doesn’t know where he stands with Michael. After what Michael did and what Ashton said, Ashton isn’t sure they have that forever anymore.

It isn’t even Michael’s fault, Ashton realizes with a sick twist in his stomach. It is all Ashton’s. Michael _begged_ for Ashton’s forgiveness. He swore up and down he loved Ashton, and Ashton had thrown it all in his face. Ashton had said he wasn’t sure he wanted to marry Michael anymore, and he had never, ever told a bigger lie in his entire life.

Ashton doesn’t deserve Michael, because Michael certainly hadn’t deserved the cruel words Ashton had thrown so carelessly at him. Michael deserves to be loved and to be cherished and to be reminded every single second of every single day of every single year for the rest of his life that he is precious.

There is a knock on the door. The person behind it identifies themselves as room service. Ashton’s pizza is here. He doesn’t want it anymore. He doesn’t think he can eat it, not with his appetite gone as a horrible, world-ending realization begins to dawn upon him. He sits frozen on the bed like he had sat for a long time after Michael had finally bowed to Ashton’s demand to leave. The truth settles in then, resting heavy in the bottom of his stomach like an anchor cast out in the middle of the ocean, and Ashton thinks he might vomit.

Michael thinks Ashton doesn’t love him—that Ashton doesn’t want to marry him—and Ashton may have just lost Michael forever, because, deep down, Ashton has to admit to himself that if he were Michael, he would never in a million years take Ashton back after how mean Ashton was to him.

 

Jacksonville is by far their worst show of the entire North American leg or maybe even of the entire tour so far. The tension is so thick on stage that Ashton thinks he might break a knife if he tried to cut it. The crowd is wild and excited, and they scream so loud Ashton might go deaf if not for his in-ears. The venue is set up for a perfect night of rocking out to the music, but not even thousands of screaming fans can dispel the tension in the band.

The band still does their job. They play their music, and they sing their songs, and they engage with the crowd, but, as Ashton can see from behind his drum kit, the interaction between each other is minimal. What little movement there is on stage comes mostly from Luke, who bounds over to Michael’s side and then to Calum’s and then back to Ashton and repeats the cycle over and over again as if he can compensate for the others’ inability to even look at one another. He is a sweaty, tired mess by the end of the night.

Calum keeps to his mic. He sings to his side of the crowd, and whenever he has to turn, even the slightest amount, toward center stage, he keeps his eyes closed as if he can’t make himself look at Michael. He doesn’t turn around to grin at Ashton like he used to do, either, which given how drunk Calum was last night into this morning and how many secrets Calum spilled in his drunken stupor, Ashton understands. He thinks he would have a hard time looking his best friends in the eye, too, if he were have to have let his emotions get the best of himself and end up breaking up their engagement.

Perhaps it is Ashton’s perpetual need to make sure those around him are doing well or perhaps it is something else, but Ashton finds his gaze drawn back to Calum numerous times throughout the show. It safe to watch Calum here in front of thousands of fans where nobody really pays attention to the drummer when Luke wears his tight black jeans that leave very little to the imagination. Ashton lets himself keep an eye on Calum, and he tells himself it is because he is afraid Calum might still have a little bit of alcohol left in his system, enough to make him possibly projectile vomit, and Ashton doesn’t think it would look nice on the band if he were to let Calum vomit all over the fans.

Ashton can lie to himself all he wants. He can, and he knows he is. He knows he should be spitting-fire mad at Calum right now. He should feel betrayed by Calum for kissing Michael. Calum is the one who helped Ashton pick out the engagement ring for Michael in the first place, so Ashton should feel doubly angry at Calum’s betrayal.

He doesn’t. He doesn’t feel anything, except friendly concern that Calum really might upchuck right in the middle of “Amnesia.” He swears to himself that this is all it is: just one friend being concerned about another. He knows he is lying, but he has gotten good at lying to himself.

When Ashton isn’t watching Calum or pretending like he is having the time of his life beating on his drums, his eyes are glued to Michael, and his heart aches in his chest every time it beats. As run down as Calum looks, it doesn’t compare to Michael, who looks washed out in his blue jean jacket. When he takes it off later, he looks even more washed out, like he hasn’t slept well in years.

Ashton knows that Michael didn’t sleep well last night—he knows that Michael never sleeps well unless he is snuggled right up against Ashton—but he hopes that Michael rested more than Ashton did. When Ashton had kicked him out, he had retreated Luke’s room, and Luke gives good cuddles with Michael is sad. Ashton is glad that Michael had Luke—that Michael wasn’t alone to stew in the awful words Ashton had spewed at him.

Michael doesn’t deserve to be haunted by the words that cut Ashton to the soul. He shouldn’t be haunted by anything, much less the monster Ashton had made himself into last night. Ashton would do anything to go back in time and shut himself up and wrap his arms around Michael and swear to Michael that he wants to spend the rest of forever with Michael.

But Ashton can’t. All Ashton can do is sit behind the drum kit and watch Michael from afar and hate himself far more than he ever has in his entire life. Probably the only thing keeping Ashton from absolutely, completely, one hundred percent falling to a million pieces right here heartbroken over how badly he hurt Michael is the platinum ring adorning the third finger of Michael’s left hand.

It is kind of pathetic, really, how Ashton’s lifeline is nothing more than a thin band of metal still wrapped around Michael’s finger—yet Ashton doesn’t even deserve that courtesy.

 

They stay another night in Jacksonville. Ashton returns to an empty hotel room that is haunted by the horrible memory of how he had treated Michael. He tried a couple of times after the show to apologize to Michael, but he might as well have been trying to catch his own shadow. Michael was anywhere except where Ashton was, and, eventually, Ashton got the hint.

Michael didn’t want to see Ashton. Truthfully, Ashton couldn’t blame him. Ashton didn’t really want to see himself, so he backed off and let Michael curl into Luke’s side in the van back to the hotel. He let Michael lean against Luke in the elevator ride up to their floor. When they got to their rooms, he let Michael follow Luke into the only room Ashton himself didn’t have a key to.

It ached, being so near to Michael yet so far away at the same time, but Ashton had hurt Michael. He couldn’t just expect Michael to forget all of the cruel words he had thrown around so carelessly last night. It wouldn’t be fair. Ashton himself couldn’t forget them. He doubted he would for the rest of his life, but he swore to himself, if Michael gave him the chance, he’d spend the rest of forever apologizing.

Ashton showers alone. He can’t face the empty hotel room, not right now at least. He is sweaty from the show, so he turns the water temperature up as hot as it will go, and he stays underneath the spray until it goes icy cold. His skin is bright red when he emerges from the bathroom with nothing more than a towel wrapped around his waist out of habit.

He never has his own hotel room. Michael always shares him. Michael should be here now, too, but he isn’t, and that is Ashton’s fault. That is all Ashton’s fault. He deserves to be alone.

Somebody knocks on the door. For a split second, Ashton gets his hopes up that it is Michael before he remembers that he has no right to expect that. If Ashton were Michael, he would spend as little time with Ashton as possible after the way Ashton spoke last night. Given the way that Michael practically bent over backwards after the show to avoid Ashton, that is exactly how Michael is handling the situation.

Ashton pushes aside all thoughts of Michael as best he can. He slips on a pair of boxers and throws his towel around his shoulders. He pads over to the door, pausing only to look through the peephole. It is Luke on the other side. Ashton opens up the door.

“Hey, Mike thinks he left his phone charger in here,” says Luke, stepping around Ashton to enter the room. Ashton lets him go, pushing the door back closed. “He’s in the shower now. I told him I’d pop over here and get it.”

Ashton makes a noise in the back of his throat. He doesn’t really know what to say. A dozen questions dart through his mind at the same time. He isn’t sure what he would rather know—how Michael is holding up or if Michael has said anything about their fight or whether or not Luke thinks Ashton has completely, totally, irreparably fucked everything up.

In the end, it doesn’t matter what Ashton would like to know. Luke spots Michael’s charger plugged up to the wall where Michael had left it yesterday evening. Pocketing it, Luke turns around to face Ashton. There is a frown on his face. Ashton doesn’t think he has ever seen Luke this disappointed in somebody—this disappointed _in him_ —and he shrinks back from Luke’s heavy gaze.

“You’re a jackass,” says Luke, casually with an undertone of anger.

Ashton doesn’t hesitate to nod his head. There is no sense in denying the truth. He is a jackass, especially with how he treated Michael last night.

“You really hurt Michael, you know, and you fucking destroyed him when you said that you weren’t sure you still wanted to marry him.”

Ashton winces. The words hurt to remember clouded in his mind from the haze of last night’s anger, but hearing them repeated back to him through Luke’s usually friendly voice cut twice as deep. So Luke knows about the fight. He probably knows everything. Ashton is surprised Luke hasn’t hauled off and punched him right across the jaw for hurting Michael, the most precious human being in the entire world and Luke’s best friend.

A ghost of a smile appears on Luke’s face, twisted at the corners of his lips. He stares at Ashton for a long time. Silence stretches out, untouched, between them. Luke sighs, and he shakes his head, his eyes never leaving those of Ashton’s.

“Yet, somehow, the loveable idiot is still head over heels in love with you, and he’s probably crying over you in the shower right now. On one hand, I can’t believe he still wants to marry your sorry ass, but on the other…”

Ashton waits, but Luke doesn’t immediately finish his sentence. He lapses into silence once more, as if the words on the tip of his tongue are too precarious to just let fall. Ashton tries to be patient, but moments pass, and Luke still hasn’t opened his mouth to complete his earlier thought.

“On the other, what?” 

Luke sighs, but that is all of the prodding he needs.

“On the other, Michael is completely lost without you.”

Ashton’s breath catches in his throat. His heart aches in his chest. He wants nothing more than to run to Luke’s room right now and fall to his knees in front of Michael and beg for the forgiveness that he doesn’t deserve.

“Look, I know that it must have hurt to find out that Calum kissed Michael,” says Luke, stopping Ashton before he even has the chance to follow through with his plan. “You probably think that Michael loves you less now that he’s kissed Calum or that Michael didn’t love you enough to tell you the truth from the very beginning, but you’re wrong. Michael loves you like you are the only shining thing in the entire universe.”

“Then why didn’t he tell me about Calum?”

“Honestly? I think it’s because you and I both know Michael has always had a little bit of an unrequited crush on Calum, and when he found out that it wasn’t so unrequited after all, he got a little emotional over the what-could-have-been. I think Michael was attracted to the idea of loving Calum, but he wanted to love you more—he does love you more—and he got scared that he would lose you if you were to find out about Calum.”

Luke leaves off the _and he did lose you_ like the good friend he is, but Ashton hears it loud and clear in the timbre of his voice anyway. Ashton winces. He hates himself even more, and he doesn’t even know why somebody as beautiful and kindhearted and loving and precious as Michael could have ever fallen in love with somebody as horrible as Ashton himself is.

“I’m an idiot,” says Ashton, burying his face in his hands. His hair is still wet on his head. Droplets of water streak crooked paths down his neck to the towel. “I am a fucking idiot.”

“Yeah, you are,” agrees Luke, seriously. He grins at Ashton a second later, but the grin is brief. He furrows his eyebrows, a question clearly forming in his mind. “I’m curious about something. You kicked Michael out last night, but why didn’t you, I dunno, punch Calum in the face or something? You’ve basically treated Calum just like you always have. Why?”

Ashton opens his mouth to respond—Calum is his friend, and people make stupid mistakes, and Ashton’s own biggest mistake was kicking Michael out—but he stops himself. Luke is smiling again, like he knows the answer to his own question. He doesn’t even give Ashton a chance to speak.

“You know what I think? I think you couldn’t decide what hurt more—your fiancé kissing your best friend or your best friend kissing your _fiancé_ first.”

At first, Ashton laughs. Luke is being ridiculous. Ashton isn’t angry that Calum kissed Michael instead of him. Ashton is angry, because Michael kissed Calum and didn’t tell Ashton about it—that Michael went and fell in love with Calum and didn’t tell Ashton about it.

But then, it gets less funny, because Luke is chewing on his bottom lip and looking an awfully lot like he has never, ever been so disappointed in another human being. Ashton stops laughing. His heart lurches in his chest as Luke’s words finally settle in around him, and they knock the breath completely out of Ashton’s lungs.

“That’s—that’s crazy talk,” stutters Ashton, because he has to say something. He has to deny it. Surely, he isn’t _in love_ with Calum. Surely, he hasn’t gone and done the one thing he got mad at Michael for doing. Surely, he isn’t that awful of a human being.

Except Ashton totally is, and he knows it. Luke knows it, too. Luke smiles as the realization settles in around them. Ashton wants to bang his head against the wall for being such a hypocritical fiancé.

“I don’t suppose you’ll let me talk to Mike tonight?” asks Ashton.

It is awful that he even has to ask, but he does. It isn’t bad that Luke has been acting like Michael’s personal bodyguard since Ashton threw Michael out last night. Ashton is rather glad that Luke is Michael’s frontline of defense—as position that Ashton himself should hold. He is glad of it even though it means that Luke is Michael’s first line of defense against _Ashton_.

What is awful, though, is the fact that Ashton has been so unforgivably horrible to Michael for Michael to need to hide behind Luke as his personal shield.

“I think that—”

Luke breaks off, hesitating. Ashton’s heart aches in his chest. He already knows what Luke is going to say, and he can’t blame Luke whatsoever for looking out for Michael.

“You hurt him pretty badly, Ash, and I don’t think that’s something you can just stroll right in and beg forgiveness for. I mean, he’s pretty upset, and he’s heartbroken, and he won’t stop fiddling with his ring—like I suggested to him last night that maybe he should put it away, because I thought, you know, it might help him get his mind off you, but he told me—he told me that he couldn’t bear the thought of taking off that damn ring, because that would be the last of you that made him yours, and, dammit, Michael loves you more than anything in the world. He does, and I know that you love him just as much, but he needs some time to heal after what you said to him.”

Ashton bites his bottom lip, dropping his gaze to the floor, because he can’t look Luke in the eyes any longer. He can’t handle the fire of anger rightfully in Luke’s gaze. He feels like a child being chastised.

“You fucking told him that you didn’t want to marry him!” shrieks Luke, and, now, the real anger comes out. “Who the fuck tells _Michael_ that? You crushed him, dammit, and I don’t really—”

Luke breaks off, forcing his mouth shut for fear of uttering the words hanging thick in the air between them. Luke is a good friend. As angry as he is with Ashton because of Michael, he doesn’t actually want to hurt Ashton. He isn’t a monster like Ashton was.

“Trust me not to break his heart again,” says Ashton, finishing Luke’s thought.

Luke grimaces but nods. It is probably kinder than Luke would have phrased it, yet the sentiment is all the same. Ashton sighs. He looks back up at Luke, meeting his eyes once more. His heart pounds in his ears.

“I don’t really blame you for that. I mean, I don’t really trust myself not to hurt him even more, either,” he admits. “But I still love him. I still want to marry him. I will do anything to get him back, I swear it.”

“I believe it,” says Luke, immediately, like he doesn’t expect any less. “Give him ‘til Nashville, all right? I know I’ve got no place to ask this, but you broke his heart, and you owe him some time away from you after what you said.”

Luke is right. Michael does deserve time away from the monster that Ashton became, so Ashton nods, agreeing. There is no sense to disagree, really. Luke is a good friend. He is loyal and protective, and while Ashton hasn’t hauled off and decked Calum for kissing Michael, Luke is liable to punch Ashton for breaking Michael’s heart.

Ashton doesn’t push his luck. He shows Luke to the door. He doesn’t bother doing up the latch after Luke is gone. He flips off the lights, drops his towel on the floor, and crawls into bed. Sleep doesn’t come easy. It never does without Michael, so Ashton sentences himself to staring up at the dark ceiling for hours to come.

Nashville. That’s two days away. It’s Pelham tomorrow and then Music City the day after. Ashton can do Nashville.

 

Except Nashville, in reality, is a million years away.

 

Ashton sleeps alone in a bed that is too big for one person in a room that is too empty with just one suitcase set up on top of the chest of drawers. Optimistically, Ashton says he slept, but, in reality, he tossed and turned all night, reaching out across cold sheets for a body that wasn’t there. By the time bus call comes bright and early the next morning, Ashton has given up on proper rest for an entire hour and a half. He has already gone for a morning run and taken a shower and packed away all of his things and done just about everything he could feasibly do in order to pass the time.

The moment he steps outside of the hotel, he is swamped by the sticky Southern humidity. He sweats so much just from the hotel to the bus that he needs another shower. He runs a hand through his curls, displacing them from his forehead. His limbs feel heavy with exhaustion. He wants nothing more than to just curl up in his bunk and sleep away the bus ride.

He is the first onto the bus, the first of the band to actually leave the hotel rooms. He hands off his suitcase, keeping his duffle bag, and boards the bus. It has been tidied up since Ashton was last on it. The broken bottle of bourbon is nowhere to be seen. He makes a mental note to thank the crew for being awesome enough to put up with such a messy band.

The problem with Ashton’s plan of sleeping away the bus ride slaps him in the face when he draws back the curtain to his bunk and sees the covers still pushed to the side where Michael had left them. Michael’s favorite pair of headphones dangle out of the pocket in the wall, and Michael’s pillow—the Pokémon one he took from his childhood bedroom—is smashed flat against Ashton’s own.

The remnants of the perfection of Ashton’s life mock him. He closes his eyes, sucking in a shaky breath. He wills away the tears that spring to his eyes. His heart clenches in his chest. Not for the first time since that awful argument does Ashton wonder how he could have ever even considered the idea of living his life without Michael by his side.

It has been a little over twenty-four hours since Ashton was so carelessly cruel—since Ashton stomped all over the love that, in the end, he didn’t deserve—and Ashton feels like he is dying inside. Nashville is forever away. He doesn’t know if he can make it that long before he breaks. Before he falls to his knees right in front of Michael and the entire fucking world, if they want to watch, and beg his forgiveness.

When Ashton opens his eyes again, he isn’t alone on the bus. He jumps, startled, at the sight of Calum standing in the doorway to the bunk room.

“Oh, I didn’t expect you to be on the bus already. Typically, you’re the last one on.”

Ashton bites his lips together and nods, because, yes, he usually is the last one on, but that is because he can’t pull himself away from Michael long enough to give a damn about showing up on time to a bus call that is purposefully set ten minutes too early. Pain shoots straight through his aching heart, and guilt settles in his stomach. He didn’t have that problem this morning. It is his own fault. He is the one who was so mean to Michael to kick him out.

“Any particular reason you’re surprised?” asks Ashton. He tries to keep the bite of his question, because he honestly is merely curious. It isn’t a hard feat to accomplish, he finds. He ignores the tiny flutter in his heart that belies the reason he isn’t instinctively mean to the man who thought it was fine to kiss Ashton’s fiancé.

Calum opens his mouth, starts to speak but, ultimately, doesn’t go through with it. Behind him, Luke and Michael stumble onto the bus, evident only by the noise. Ashton can’t see beyond Calum into the front of the bus, and neither Luke nor Michael head immediately for the bunks.

“I’m sorry,” says Calum, eventually.

His voice is so devastated that Ashton jumps at the sound. Ashton diverts his attention back to Calum, meeting his eyes, and tears shine back at him. Calum probably can’t see Ashton for the tears that begin to spill down his cheeks. Ashton wants to step forward, bridge the distance between them, and wipe away the tears until they’re nothing. He wants to wrap his arms around Calum and keep him safe from whatever awful thoughts are running rampant through his mind to cause such a fracture in Calum’s normally guarded emotions.

Calum doesn’t do this. He doesn’t cry in front his friends, and he doesn’t stand awkwardly in doorways looking for all of the world like a lost soul with no chance of redemption. Calum is strong and stubborn. He can spit anger like fire, but never does he cry so openly. So brokenly.

“I didn’t mean—”

Calum stops at that. Maybe it’s because he too choked up to speak. Or maybe it is because he isn’t sure what he meant to do. Ashton isn’t given the chance to ask. Calum recovers too quickly.

“You and Mike are my best friends, and I love you both, and I’m happy for you—happy that you guys are getting forever together. I swear, I am. I shouldn’t have kissed Michael. I didn’t mean to come in between you.”

Ashton’s heart aches in his chest, like an invisible hand is wrapped around it and squeezing it for all it is worth. The desire to gather Calum up in his arms and hug him until he stops crying and maybe not stopping then, either, is almost too great to ignore. Ashton is a foolish man. He is impulsive. Sometimes, he says things he doesn’t mean in a million years. Sometimes, he hurts the most precious person in his life. He is guilty of all of these things and more.

What he isn’t, though, is stupid. Right here, right now, faced with a tearful, apologetic Calum, Luke’s words echo in Ashton’s mind, _I think you couldn’t decide what hurt more—your fiancé kissing your best friend or your best friend kissing your fiancé first_ , and Ashton knows exactly which one hurt more.

“You weren’t the problem,” says Ashton, quietly. “I was the one who didn’t give Michael a chance to explain. That’s all on me.”

His heart feels like it might beat straight out of his chest. This is crazy, this realization that he has come to, but it feels right like nothing else ever has, except for that shining moment years ago when he admitted to himself that he loved Michael and that he was going to marry Michael one day. Now, that feeling is right back.

Ashton loves Michael with his entire heart. He will love him every day until the day he dies and then forever beyond that. Ashton swears that in his soul. He does.

But he wants to love Calum just as much for just as long, too.

“He wouldn’t have needed to explain anything if it hadn’t been for me,” says Calum.

“Love never makes anybody a bad person,” says Ashton.

Calum snorts. It is a wet affair. The next tear that steams down his cheek breaks off from the premade path and zigzags down to his jaw. He averts his gaze from Ashton and finally steps out of the doorway to head for his bunk. He pulls back his curtain and hesitates before he climbs in, looking back at Ashton. 

“No,” he says, “but jealousy does.”

 _Yeah_ , thinks Ashton, watching as Calum disappears into the bunk and thinking about how mean he himself had been to Michael night before last, _it does_.

 

Ashton spends the entirety of the bus ride hiding out in his bunk, tossing and turning on the tiny mattress and breathing in the faint scent of Michael left behind on the pillows. It feels like it takes forever to get to Pelham. In reality, it takes less than seven hours straight through. They arrive mid-afternoon, a few hours before their concert is due to start. Ashton wishes they would have driven on through to Nashville.

The afternoon passes in a blur. Ashton keeps up with the schedule like is expected, but he is distracted the whole time. Luke, the only one of the band who isn’t torn up inside, is left to take the reins of everything. Ashton feels a little guilty for placing such a burden on Luke, especially since Ashton normally prides himself on taking that burden himself. He can’t today. He can’t help but to devote most of his attention to watching Michael and keeping an eye on Calum. They both look run-down.

Calum looks a little less so, probably because he apologized to Ashton earlier, so the guilt that he has carried around with him since New York has waned ever-so-slightly. Ashton knows that Calum would never believe that a simple apology would be enough to make up for his horrible transgression, but Ashton wishes Calum wouldn’t be so hard on himself—especially since Ashton can’t really blame Calum for falling in love with Michael and wanting to kiss him. Ashton is surprised the entire world doesn’t want to kiss Michael.

If Michael slept half restlessly as Ashton did last night, it doesn’t show. In fact, second to Luke, Michael is the most active on stage that night. He actually leaves his mic and goes over to pester Luke and strays far enough to the other side of the stage that it almost seems like he wants to mess around with Calum, too. He never heads for the drums, though, and Ashton can’t blame him.

The thing is, as the night wears on, it wears Michael down. His defenses—this whole charade of a performance—goes down with him. He can’t keep up appearances forever. This whole act of being energetic has all been for show, his extra attempt to make up for the uncomfortable performance at Jacksonville. Ashton sees the fissures in Michael’s grin when Luke makes a particularly awful pun that has the whole crowd roaring with laughter. The cracks are there in Michael’s pseudo-happy expression, and Ashton’s own heart breaks in that very same pattern.

They all leave the stage sweaty and exhausted afterwards. They shower together, quiet, and the tension in the shower room is so thick that Ashton barely stays underneath the spray long enough to wash off all of the soap. Ashton wants to dispel the tension. He wants to go down on his knees right here and apologize to Michael, but he doesn’t. He promised Luke Nashville, and Nashville is tomorrow, and Ashton isn’t really sure Michael feels up to anything right now that isn’t heading straight for the bus and going to sleep.

So Ashton keeps his apologies to himself for just a little while longer. When they gather their things from the venue to take back on the bus, Ashton grabs Michael’s duffle, too. It is mostly out of habit, because Ashton always carries Michael’s belongings so that Michael doesn’t have to, but also because Michael looks dead on his feet.

When Michael tracks down his bag and sees it with Ashton, he hesitates. Ashton adjusts the strap of the bag on his shoulder. He dares himself to look Michael straight in the eye when he shrugs, silently offering to carry the bag to the bus. It is a tiny gesture, probably not worth mulling over, but the small appreciative smile that Michael musters up for him is the entire world.

Ashton feels a little lighter all the way to the bus.

Once there, he carefully stows Michael’s bag away underneath their bunks. It fits perfectly right beside of Ashton’s own things. They have been touring for years, sharing a set of bunks, so that is no surprise, but after seeing all of empty spaces in the hotel room that Michael should have taken up, it brings a smile to Ashton’s face.

It has been a long day. Nashville is tomorrow, so Ashton strips down to his boxers right in the aisle between the bunks. He folds his clothes and shoves them on his side of the storage underneath before he crawls into his bunk, intent to try to catch some sleep on the drive. Tomorrow, as promised, he can work on getting his forever back. Tonight, he needs rest.

But rest doesn’t come easy. He tosses and turns for the first hour of the drive. He hears Luke and Calum both go to bed, muttering a _goodnight_ to one another on the other side of Ashton’s curtain. Ashton flips to his right side, curls up in a ball, and tries to ignore all of the empty space in his bunk that Michael used to always take up.

Ashton pulls up his phone to take his mind off Michael. He goes to Twitter and scrolls through his feed, but he only thinks about Michael even more. He thinks about how run down and lifeless Michael had looked at the end of the concert, about how Michael had hardly said a word afterward, and about how much Ashton wants to hug him right now and tell him he is sorry.

But he can’t. Instead, he tweets out, “You need to believe you are special, you need to believe you are magic, because that's exactly what you are,” because he can’t say those words to Michael right now, even though he wants to.

He makes himself sad thinking about how horrible he was to Michael. Seeing his promise on a phone screen instead of uttering it to Michael himself makes Ashton’s stomach churn with guilt. He closes out of the twitter app and stows his phone away in the pocket on the wall. He thinks about how much he hates himself for saying those awful things to Michael the other night.

It doesn’t make for a restful night.

Eventually, Ashton gives up all pretenses of actually sleeping for longer than half of an hour at a time. His bladder is bursting. He tells himself that he will sleep better once he has relieved himself. That lie sustains him all the way to the toilet and back, but, just as he is about to climb back into his bunk, the door to lounge slides open.

Ashton freezes, one knee resting on his mattress, poised to hoist himself into the bunk. His breath catches in his throat. Michael stands, similarly frozen, in the doorway to the lounge. It is dark in here, the only light streaming in from the windows behind Michael, so Ashton can’t see much, but that doesn’t stop him from thinking that Michael looks as devastatingly handsome as ever.

Michael is just as surprised to find Ashton awake as Ashton is to see him standing in the doorway. The shadows cast across Michael’s face says as much, his eyebrows raised high on his forehead and his lips parted in a gasp. His blond hair nearly shines in the darkness. It is a mess atop his head, like he has spent the past however long running his fingers through it.

He is wearing a stretched out black t-shirt. It is nondescript. He probably has half of a dozen or so just like it in his suitcase, except the tear in the left sleeve that starts from the hem and ends halfway up to the shoulder makes Ashton’s stomach flip flop as an army of butterflies wages war.

That is Ashton’s shirt. Michael is wearing _Ashton’s_ shirt, and this alone fills Ashton to the brim with all of the hope that he is unworthy of harboring. Ashton’s chest tightens, making it hard for him to draw in another breath. He drops his gaze to Michael’s right hand before he can stop himself. His toes curl at the sight, a smile forming on his lips.

There in the darkness glints Michael’s engagement ring. Michael hasn’t actually taken it off this entire time, but there exists in Ashton this fear that Michael might fall out of love with Ashton enough to remove the ring. Ashton isn’t sure what he would do if that came to pass. He has been so mean to Michael that he wouldn’t blame Michael if he decided to take off the ring and never, ever put it back on.

Ashton doesn’t deserve the lifeline that is the engagement ring still hugging third finger of Michael’s left hand. Ashton took the most beautiful man in the entire world and crushed him like he was nothing. Ashton is an awful, horrible human being who isn’t worthy of being in Michael’s presence, let alone of Michael still being in love with him.

“I, uh—” says Michael, but he stops, and Ashton is acutely aware of the fact that this is the first time they’ve spoken to one another since their fight. Michael’s hands tremble. It is noticeable only in the darkness because of the light bouncing off his ring. “I thought you were asleep.”

 “Couldn’t sleep,” admits Ashton, because he always has to tell Michael the truth. He does an awful rendition of a shrug, though most of it is probably lost in the darkness. His entire body is on fire right now, and he burns with the desire to wrap his arms around Michael and never, ever let Michael go. Ashton doesn’t have that right. Not now. He ceded it the moment he doubted Michael’s unwavering love. “Kept tossing and turning. The bunk’s too…”

He lets his voice trail off into nothingness, because he doesn’t think it is his place to admit how _empty_ the tiny bunk is in Michael’s absence. It is Ashton’s fault in the first place that Michael isn’t there to fill the space. People like Ashton—people who so carelessly toss aside the love of precious, gentle people like Michael—don’t deserve niceties like a good night’s sleep.

The bus is traveling down some highway in northern Alabama or, maybe, southern Tennessee. Ashton isn’t sure exactly where they are, but he knows for a fact that he isn’t going to make it to Nashville, despite his promise to Luke otherwise. Right now, here with Michael in the tenderness of night when Ashton always feels his most vulnerable, he can’t hold back the floodgates of his apology—of the apology Michael deserved the moment those awful words spewed from Ashton’s mouth.

“I’m sorry.”

Michael sucks in a sudden breath, like he wasn’t expecting such a phrase to fall from Ashton’s tongue. It echoes in the space between them. He takes a submissive step back into the lounge where more moonlight washes over him. It provides enough light for Ashton to see the unadulterated brokenness on Michael’s face—the hopeless exhaustion seeping into the frown on his lips. It is like a punch to the gut, and Ashton trips over himself to speak.

“You don’t have to say anything, and I don’t want you to accept my apology—not now, at least. I don’t deserve to be forgiven, but I’m going to work on that. I mean, I’m not saying that you _have_ to forgive me, because you don’t, and I was awful to you. I said a bunch of mean and untrue things to you, and I hurt you, and I hate myself, but I want to—”

“Shut up,” says Michael.

Ashton does, his heart leaping to his throat. He holds his breath. Michael stares at him for a long moment and says nothing, but Ashton doesn’t dare bridge the silence, not since Michael has told him to keep quiet. He would walk straight into an active volcano right now if Michael so told him.

“You’re always too hard on yourself,” says Michael, sadly.

“I hurt you. I was mean to you.”

Michael nods. He wears his emotions, particularly his hurt, on his sleeves, so there is no sense in denying the obvious. He folds his arms across his chest and hunches in on himself. Ashton’s t-shirt almost drowns him.

“But I lied to you. I kissed Calum, and I didn’t tell you about it.”

Ashton licks across his bottom lip. He huffs. He thinks he knows where Michael is taking this conversation, and it is heading in a ridiculous direction.

“They’re not the same thing, what you and I did. I am not entitled to tell you who to fall in love with. That is you and you alone. I was out of line. I was so out of line that I—” Ashton’s voice breaks. He takes a quick breath. His heart aches in his chest, but he pushes forward. Everything depends on this moment right here. “I lied to you. I told you I didn’t want to marry you, but I swear, Michael, there is nobody else in the entire universe I could love more than you. There is nobody else in the entire universe I want to marry more than you.”

Michael curls his right hand into a fist and raises it to rest against his heart. His thumb traces across the ridges of his engagement ring. He draws in a shaky breath, staring at Ashton in the darkness like he is half-terrified that Ashton is going to retract his declaration. Ashton doesn’t.

“I love you, Michael. I loved you the first day we met, and I’ve loved you every day since, and I swear I will love you every single day for the rest of my life and beyond if I can.”

“ _Ashton_ ,” breathes Michael. He sounds like he is so close to breaking down right in front of Ashton, like the walls that he has had to construct over the past forty-eight hours are crumbling all around him and Ashton is the only person who can save him. He sounds like he _wants_ Ashton to save him. “Please, don’t say it if you don’t mean it. I really can’t handle anymore lies right now.”

“I’ve never meant anything more in my life,” promises Ashton.

He dares to take a step forward into the space separating them. When Michael doesn’t take a responding step back, Ashton takes another and another and another and finally another until he is face-to-face, inches from Michael once more. Michael’s breath puffs warm against Ashton’s lips. Ashton’s entire body burns with desire, and Michael isn’t moving away.

“Can I kiss you?”

Michael answers with a joyful laugh that is probably much too loud for this time of night, especially given the proximity of their sleeping band mates. Ashton doesn’t care. It is a beautiful sound, and Michael’s lips crashes against Ashton’s in the next second, and Michael kiss tastes like the forgiveness Ashton doesn’t deserve, but Ashton eats it up nonetheless.

When they break, they pant against each other, resting their foreheads together. Ashton rests a tentative hand on Michael’s hip. Michael leans into it, and Ashton ducks in for another kiss, too overwhelmed with _love_ to do anything else except pour his entire soul into kissing Michael until they have to break for air once more. This time, when they part, Michael falls into Ashton’s arms, collapsing into his chest like he is always meant to be there—and he is.

“I was so scared,” admits Michael, quiet into Ashton’s chest, and Ashton tightens his arms protectively around Michael, hating himself. “I love you so much, and I was so scared that I had lost you. Please, don’t do that again. I don’t know if I can—I can’t _survive_ without you, Ash.”

“I swear to you I will never, ever break your heart again. I was stupid to do it in the first place,” says Ashton. It is the truth. He was stupid and mean and careless to be so horrible to the most precious person in the entire universe. “I haven’t been able to function without you, and it’s all my fault. Hell, I haven’t been able to sleep for the past two nights, because you weren’t in the bed with me.”

“I don’t sleep well without you, either,” says Michael.

He is still quiet like he isn’t sure he is allowed to admit how much he needs Ashton. Six months ago, he wouldn’t have had that fear. Michael has never been afraid of anything. Ashton hates that he made Michael afraid of _him_. Michael should never be afraid of Ashton.

“Come to bed with me, please?” suggests Ashton.

He holds his breath until Michael nods. Relief sweeps over him. Gently, ever-so-gently, Ashton escorts Michael to the bunks and ushers Michael in first, because he knows that Michael likes sleeping between Ashton and the wall. It is where Michael feels most safe when the road wears him down. Right now, the road hasn’t worn Michael down half as much as Ashton himself has, and Ashton vows to himself to do everything in his power to build Michael back up.

That is what lovers do. They love each other, and they build one another up. They don’t go around tossing each other out of hotel rooms and saying that they don’t want to marry each other anymore. Ashton needs to make things right.

Ashton climbs in next to Michael. He draws the curtains close. When he lays down, Michael immediately molds his body around Ashton, latching onto him like he is terrified that Ashton might disappear. Ashton isn’t any better. He wraps his arms around Michael, and he holds him as tight as he can, because he hasn’t gotten to touch Michael in so long of a time, and he had missed how perfectly Michael fit in his arms.

They are quiet for a little while. The bus rumbles underneath them somewhere on a highway stretching from Alabama up to Tennessee. The soothing motion is enough to lull them to sleep, but Ashton isn’t yet ready to rest. His mind catches on residual guilt.

“Don’t forgive me just yet, okay?” he requests, but his arms are wrapped tightly around Michael, and Michael is resting on Ashton’s chest, and everything is like it should be. “I promised Luke I’d give you space until we got to Nashville, and I think that he’s right. I think that, maybe, you need to hate me a little while longer.”

“Don’t need ‘til Nashville,” mutters Michael, half-asleep. He digs his fingers into the soft skin of Ashton’s side, right where his rib cage ends. It is painful, but Ashton doesn’t complain of the sharp pin pricks against his skin. They make Ashton feel alive. “Never hated you. Never even wanted to.”

Ashton’s breath catches in his throat. He is so overcome with love that he is afraid he might float away, but Michael is a firm anchor holding him down. He can’t believe he came so close to losing Michael forever.

“I think I hated myself enough for the both of us,” admits Ashton. “I swear to you, I will never, ever break your heart again.”

Michael smiles into Ashton’s chest. Ashton feels more than he sees it, and it brings a wave of _love_ crashing over Ashton nonetheless. He expects that to be it for the night, but it isn’t. Michael speaks up again. His breath puffs warm against the bare skin of Ashton’s chest.

“Just promise me you’ll marry me and we’ll live happily ever after, and that’ll be good enough for me.”

“I’ll marry you every day if you want me to.”

Michael laughs. It is a beautiful sound that echoes off the enclosed walls of the bunk and is, once again, probably too loud for the late hour of the night. Ashton drinks in the noise as if it were the elixir of life, and he thinks that he could get drunk off this sound alone. He presses a soft kiss to the top of Michael’s head. He wishes he could kiss Michael’s mouth instead, but he can’t reach, so he makes do with what he can.

Michael snuggles even farther into Ashton’s chest. Ashton feels him grin again. The last thing Ashton remembers before giving over to the oblivion of sleep is Michael speaking one final time. His voice washes over Ashton like the caress of a lover.

“Just once will be enough, I think—and I call dibs on Luke for best man.”

 

With Michael in his arms, Ashton sleeps soundly for the rest of the night.

 

The next morning, they are in Nashville. Things are different. The air is thinner on the bus, easier to breathe for the first time in two days. When Ashton and Michael stumble out of bed for breakfast, Luke and Calum are already seated at the booth in the kitchenette. Michael’s palm is pressed against Ashton’s, and Ashton’s breath catches in his throat at the first sight of Calum, still sleepy with his hair sticking up in all directions on top of his head.

A wave of desire nearly brings Ashton to his knees. He wonders how he could have been so blind all of this time. Right now, all he wants to do is to sit down next to Calum and draw Calum to him and let Calum rest against his shoulder so that he can run his fingers through Calum’s hair.

The familiar flutter of guilt in his stomach increases tenfold. He hates himself again for being so cruel to Michael about Calum. He hates himself for being so weak in the face of jealousy. He doesn’t deserve Michael’s forgiveness, and he certainly isn’t worthy of falling in love with Calum.

“You two worked things out, I assume?” asks Luke, grinning over at them. He has a half-eaten piece of toast in one hand and a dab of sticky grape jelly suck to his cheek.  He waves his toast around, using it to point at Michael then Ashton. “Good, because I don’t need to be the only one in the band who has his shit together. Trust me, I’m not up to that standard. I’m probably the farthest from it.”

Calum, for his part, offers both Michael and Ashton a weak smile. It is a farce of a best friend’s approval, but he does his best. It can’t be easy being happy for the man that he loves when that man doesn’t love him back and the proof is right in front of him, in a twofold act of clasped hands and an engagement ring.

“What are your plans for today, anyway?” asks Luke a beat later.

He smashes the rest of the piece of toast into his mouth, spraying crumbs everywhere. Ashton wipes off the table before he sits down across from Calum. He doesn’t trust himself to sit next to Calum—he doesn’t trust that he won’t do something unwelcomed like throw his arm around Calum’s shoulder and pull him close just like he does with Michael—so he leaves Michael to sit in the empty spot.

Michael, to his credit, takes it in stride. He sits down next to Calum like it were any other day, like Calum had never kissed him and they hadn’t had a falling out. He hooks his foot around Ashton’s ankle underneath the table, and it is the only indication that Michael is uncomfortable sitting next to his best friend.

Guilt gnaws at Ashton, because Michael isn’t afraid of sitting next to his best friend. He is afraid of losing Ashton again because of his proximity to Calum. Ashton wants to tell Michael that he doesn’t have to worry about Ashton’s anger anymore. It was misplaced in to begin with.

Ashton doesn’t say a word, because it isn’t his place. It is his actions that have led to this level of discomfort between Michael and Calum. He hates himself for it, and he vows that he will make everything right again, some way, somehow—except he sort of thinks he knows _how_ to fix things. He just isn’t sure he is allowed to ask.

“Don’t you and I have a songwriting date?” asks Michael. “Or have you wimped out on me because I was an idiot and sent our draft to the entire band?”

Ashton winces at the reminder, guilt churning in his stomach. Across from him, Calum stiffens. It is an almost unnoticeable response, but Ashton has grown accustom to watching Calum closely out of the corner of his eye for the past couple of days. For the first time since Michael sent that awful text message, Ashton realizes that it hadn’t just gone to him. It had gone to Calum, too.

“Nah, I thought you might have wanted to spend the day having makeup sex with Ashton,” says Luke, laughing.

Calum flinches. He ducks his head to hide his face in the next second, leaning on his elbow as if he were merely tired. Ashton sees through the ruse like it is a window.

“You get pissy when we get come on the couch,” says Michael, shrugging. He reaches across the table and snatches Luke’s remaining piece of toast, withdrawing his hand before Luke can slap it. He grins victoriously at his spoils. The smile vanishes in the next second as Michael turns to Ashton uncertainly. “Is that okay? That me and Luke write today?”

“If that’s what you want to do, then do it,” says Ashton, because Michael doesn’t need his permission to do anything. Ashton’s heart aches with the realization of exactly _why_ Michael felt the need to ask him—that Michael is scared that Ashton might get mad at him for wanting to do something productive for the future of their careers instead of wasting away the day with Ashton. “I might explore a bit of Nashville anyway. Thought I’d see if maybe, uh, Cal might want to go with me?”

It is a gamble. On one hand, Michael might get hurt by Ashton even propositioning such an adventure since Ashton had gone ape-shit crazy jealous about Calum in what has been their worst fight to date. On the other hand, Calum can say no. Ashton holds his breath, expecting both to happen.

Neither does. Michael grins, pleased, and he nods eagerly at the idea. Calum’s enthusiasm, by comparison, is muted. He looks over at Ashton, startled by the question. A couple of seconds pass before he tentatively nods his head.

“You did stand me up in New York _and_ Jacksonville,” says Ashton, going for humor even as his heart aches in his chest at the reminder of exactly why Calum hadn’t been eager to explore those two cities. “You can’t leave me hanging for Nashville, too.”

It garners a half-smile from Calum, which is actually better than Ashton was expecting. As painful as those cities are for Ashton, they have to be ten thousand times worse for Calum. The copious amounts of alcohol he consumed on the way down the east coast is testament enough to that. Ashton can’t even begin to imagine how it would feel to be in Calum’s shoes—how it would feel to be in love with Michael and have to watch him marry somebody else.

It would be a fate worse than death, and Ashton doesn’t wish it on Calum.

 

Nashville is bustling. It is a Saturday in mid-July, so that is only to be expected. It is hot, the Southern heat still as unrelentingly brutal as it was in Alabama or Florida. Ashton sweats straight through his black t-shirt within the first five minutes. He entertains the idea that it isn’t the smartest of colors to wear while walking around in the city all day. Calum had only been minutely smarter than Ashton to wear a cut-off, yet he still sweats just as much as Ashton.

Things between them go a lot smoother than Ashton expects. After the two of them leave Michael and Luke on the bus to work on songs, they exchange easy small talk like old friends. If Ashton can close his eyes and ignore how Calum stiffens up every time Ashton brushes up against him, no matter how innocently, Ashton can almost pretend like nothing ever happened to cause a fall out between them.

He can almost pretend like _this is a date_.

He says nothing of the sort. Mostly, because it would be odd and a little hypocritical, considering how Ashton reacted when he found out that Calum kissed Michael. Also, though, there is a good chance that Ashton is the one who is dealing with unrequited love. Just because Calum kissed Michael, that does not mean he would like to kiss Ashton, too.

They walk up and down Broadway like a couple of tourists. A few people recognize them—they always do, especially on days of their concerts—but, for the most part, they are left to their own devices. Ashton drags Calum into a secondhand music shop just down the street from Bridgestone Arena, and he buys a secondhand banjo. It feels like the right thing to purchase in the city that is the home of country music.

He lies to Calum that this is the real reason he absolutely had to purchase the banjo. He can’t quite look Calum in the eyes and admit that he had only wanted to buy the instrument, because Calum himself looked ethereal with it in his hands. Calum looks beautiful any time he has a string instrument in his hands, of course, but there is something about the way the sunlight streams in through the dusty windows that casts a soft glow across Calum’s face and makes Ashton’s heart skip a beat in his chest.

It looks like love at first sight, except Ashton thinks he might already be in love with Calum.

They stop by a spaghetti and steak restaurant off Broadway. It is hidden out of the way near a couple of parking structures, but the flashing red neon sign captures Calum’s attention all the way down the street. Ashton doesn’t even give any of the other restaurants a second passing glance.

The restaurant isn’t crowded at this time of day. It is a little too early for the lunch rush, so Ashton and Calum sit in the back corner of the dining room. There is nobody seated within five tables from them. It feels private and intimate, and Ashton nearly knocks over his glass of water with his trembling hands. He hasn’t been this nervous at a restaurant since he and Michael went out on their first date. This right here, Calum seated across him underneath dim lighting, their knees bumping together under the table, _feels_ like a date, even though, technically, it isn’t.

Ashton orders a beer and spends the entire time waiting for it trying to remind himself that this really is just a lunch between two friends.

Calum seems at ease, oblivious to the covetous thoughts running rampant through Ashton’s mind. He peruses the menu and comments on a few of the choices that he thinks he might like to eat. Ashton’s stomach is churning with guilt and forbidden desire. He doesn’t have much of an appetite, but when the waitress comes by to take their order, he gets the same steak-and-spaghetti combination that Calum orders, only he holds off on the mushrooms.

“I kinda want to check out the river later and maybe stop in a shop or two,” says Calum. He takes a swig of his beer then sets it back down, missing the condensation ring by a good inch. “I saw one on the way down that looked pretty cool. Might have some nice artwork for L.A. I know you’re looking for a piece for your bedroom. I saw some pretty cool basses in a shop window, too. Might buy me a new one.”

“Hmm?” asks Ashton, distractedly.

He stares at the chipped black nail polish on Calum’s fingers and wondering how they would look offset by a platinum ring. It takes him an entire five seconds to realize exactly what he is fantasizing. He startles himself out of it, his heart pounding like steady kick drum beat in his chest. His cheeks burn in a blush. He has no right to be thinking about something like that.

“Have you been listening to a word I’ve said?” asks Calum, but he doesn’t sound offended. He laughs instead. “Jez, Ash. If you want to get back to Michael so bad, you don’t have to walk around Nashville with me.”

Ashton’s eyes snap to Calum’s.

“Why d’you think I want to get back to Michael?”

“What else would have you so distracted?” asks Calum, shrugging. He takes another long drink of his beer. When he is done, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “I get it, all right? If Michael were mine—sorry, I don’t mean to imply anything. I know you guys are happy together, and I’m happy for you. I am—but if, you know, he were mine, I wouldn’t want to be away from him for a single moment. You’ve got my permission to totally ditch me, man.”

“Did you know Michael is in love with you?” asks Ashton, the question tumbling from his lips with such ease that he doesn’t realize he has said anything until he stops talking.

Calum hiccups in surprised. His eyes go wide, like he has been caught red-handed stealing something. He opens his mouth to respond but closes it in the next second. Ashton takes pity on him.

“He wrote a song about it. Well, I mean, that’s sort of what he and Luke are working on today, I think, but he sent a picture of his journal to all of us by mistake when we were in Jacksonville,” says Ashton. “That’s why Mike and I had a fight. I found out he was in love with you right after you told me you had kissed him, and I got angry with Michael about it.”

He tries to keep his voice as gentle as he can, because he doesn’t want Calum to get the wrong idea. He isn’t _mad_ at Michael for being in love with Calum anymore, not since he realized that the real source of his anger had nothing to do with Michael’s feelings for Calum but rather for the fact that Calum hadn’t kissed Ashton instead.

“I saw the message,” says Calum, quietly. He ducks his head so that he doesn’t have to look Ashton in the eyes any longer. He curls in on himself. “I didn’t mean for things to get so out of hand. I didn’t—I swear I didn’t know that Michael had feelings for me when I kissed him. I was drunk and heartbroken and—”

“I was more angry at myself than I was at Michael that night,” interrupts Ashton, speaking as if Calum had never confirmed that he did, in fact, know about Michael’s song. It is important that Calum knows about everything, too, at least from Ashton’s side. “I didn’t really know it at the time. Like, that’s not something you ever admit to yourself, especially when you’ve just asked somebody to marry you.”

Calum glances up at Ashton. He doesn’t raise his head, though, choosing to look at Ashton through his eyelashes instead. He furrows his eyebrows.

“I don’t think I understand,” he admits.

That is fair enough, because Ashton has been beating around the bush, terrified of what he means to say—terrified that it is going to be thrown back in his face. He takes a deep, readying breath. He wants to shut his eyes, but he keeps them open. He wants to see Calum’s reaction, even if it is one that will haunt him for years to come.

“I was angry that you didn’t want to kiss me instead of Michael.”

Calum sucks in a sudden breath. His head snaps up this time, and his mouth gapes in wonder, and Ashton is so scared of the next few minutes that he has to hold his own breath. Ashton kind of wants to bolt right now. He wishes Michael were here with him. He wishes he would have waited to tell Michael first, but he didn’t want to get Michael’s hopes up for nothing. Ashton’s endgame won’t work if even one single thing goes awry. It has to start here.

“Ash—”  says Calum, brokenly.

He stops completely for a moment. He stares at Ashton in the meantime, chewing on his bottom lip. Calum has always had a good poker face. Right now, he gives nothing away. It feels like eternity to Ashton before Calum speaks again.

“You are living my dream life. Compared to Michael, kissing you would have been like kissing myself. All I’ve wanted since I was a teenager was Michael, and you’ve got him. I’ve spent the past five years trying to hate you for stealing Michael away from me, but I knew that that isn’t what happened. Michael was never mine. He was always yours. It’s like you both are two halves of the same heart. Seriously. I’ve never seen anybody as in love with each other you and Michael are.”

“But Michael loves you, too,” says Ashton, quietly.

Calum nods. He smiles for a second then lets it fall from his lips. He sits up a little straighter in his seat.

“You were always a little out of my league,” says Calum, shrugging like it is nothing, but the way his hands tremble on the table belies how important it has always been for him. “You totally blasted into the band—into my life—and you just had everything together. You were some kind of perfect specimen of a human being that always sort of made me feel a little intimidated.”

Ashton snorts in disbelief.

“I had nothing together back then, I promise you that. Hell, I don’t even have everything together now.”

“Still, though, you stole Michael’s heart from day one, and I was left in the dust. It was—I tried not to think about you in that way. I tried not to fall in love with you, because I knew that you’d break my heart, and I couldn’t handle getting heartbroken over both you and Michael. I couldn’t survive it, so I tried not to let myself think about you in that way.”

Calum is unabashed about the truth, candid with Ashton like he typically is, and, on one hand, Ashton appreciates the honesty. On the other, though, it hurts to know that Ashton’s tiny crush on Calum has been unrequited. Ashton takes a long drink of his beer. The rejection burns all the way down to his stomach.

“What you and Michael have—I envy that, and I really am sorry that I got in between you two. It was a bastard move on my behalf. If anybody in the entire world deserves a happily ever after, it’s you and Mike.”

“What about you?”

Calum shrugs. He takes another swig of his beer.

“I’ll be okay. Maybe I’ll adopt a dog or something.”

“Cal—”

“Don’t worry about me. Some people are just meant to end up alone, aren’t they?”

“You don’t seriously believe that,” says Ashton, taken aback.

His heart breaks at the idea of Calum ending up all alone in the world. Calum has so much room in his heart for love that he willingly walked into a jewelry store to help his best friend find the perfect ring for the man Calum himself had been in love with for a decade. Nobody with that capacity to love deserves to be alone.

“I dunno,” says Calum. “Maybe. I’m only, like, twenty, though, so I suppose I’ve got the rest of my life to figure that out.”

 

Except Calum doesn’t, but he doesn’t know that just yet.

 

Nashville is hands-down the best show they’ve had since MSG. Perhaps it is because this is Music City, and people here just know how to have a good concert. Or perhaps it is because, for the first time since New York, there isn’t a single ounce of tension on stage. Michael and Calum are back to running all over the place, annoying the hell out of Luke, and giving their absolute all to the crowd.

Ashton sits behind his drum kit and watches them both with an exuberant grin on his face. They’re beautiful on stage, ethereal under the lights, and Ashton wants to kiss them both right now in front of thousands of screaming fans. He wants to so badly he can hardly keep himself seated behind the drums.

He does the lead in for “Girls Talk Boys” instead.

After the show, they are all still high on adrenaline. Michael barrels through the narrow hallways of backstage straight for Ashton, and he crashes into Ashton like a wave crashes against the ocean shore. Ashton catches him, because, of course, he does, and he pulls Michael close. He presses a kiss against the top of Michael’s sweaty head. His lips taste like salt when he pulls away.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ashton spies Calum chugging a bottle of water. He is drenched in sweat. They all are, of course, but Calum’s black muscle shirt clings to him like a second skin, leaving nothing to the imagination, and desire pools in the pit of Ashton’s belly.

Ashton thinks about his conversation with Calum at the restaurant earlier, and, suddenly, he can’t wait any longer. He pulls Michael aside, out of the way of the crew hustling around backstage. He would prefer if they were some place a little more private for this conversation, but the lights are dim over them, and nobody seems to care about the pair of lovers hiding away in the corner.

“If I were to ask you something, would you be completely, one hundred percent honest with me?” asks Ashton, his voice quiet so that nobody might overhear by chance. He stands an arm’s length away from Michael. The distance feels vast, but he doesn’t give in to the urge to bridge it. He wants to look Michael in the eyes for this. “Even if you thought you would hurt my feelings?”

Michael furrows his eyebrows, worry appearing in his eyes. He chews on his bottom lip, a nervous habit, but he nods his head. Ashton waits until Michael verbally confirms it.

“Of course, Ash. I’d never lie to you—especially not after everything that has happened this week.”

Ashton bites his lips together. He nods, mostly to show that he accepts Michael’s answer on its face but also to buy himself time to build up the courage to go through with this. This was much less scary in his head. He stands with so much to lose that, for a shining moment, he almost backs out of it all. He doesn’t let himself, because he is doing this for Michael and for himself and for the both of them together.

“Do you still love Calum?”

Michael gasps, taking an automatic step back as if Ashton’s question had landed a physical blow. It is obvious by the flabbergasted expression gracing his face that this is the absolute last thing he had ever expected Ashton to just come out and ask him. That does not matter, because Ashton has his answer. As surprised as Michael is about the question, he still answers it almost immediately, a bright flush tinting his cheeks.

“I love you,” is Michael’s answer a beat later. “I love you more than anybody in the entire world. I don’t know why it matters if I have feelings for Calum or not.”

“You do, though,” says Ashton, doggedly.

Michael chews on his bottom lip. He stares at Ashton with a hint of betrayal in his eyes like he doesn’t understand why Ashton is forcing Michael to be so mean—why Ashton is forcing Michael to admit straight to Ashton’s face that Michael is still head over heels in love with his best friend as much as he was when they were teenagers with a crazy dream of the band hitting it big. It isn’t something that Michael wants to admit to Ashton in a million years, because it doesn’t matter how much Michael loves Calum, he swears that he loves Ashton a hundred times more.

“It doesn’t matter,” maintains Michael. He reaches for Ashton’s hands, holding them with both of his like he is clinging to life itself through them. “I only need you for the rest of my life.”

Ashton grips Michael’s hands equally as tight, if only to stop his own from trembling with what he is about to say. This could blow up in his face. He could lose Michael forever, or his impending proposition might not work after all then Ashton will have nothing to show for all of this effort except a broken heart.

“I love you, Michael,” he says, seriously and with so much emotion in his voice that it is hard to wrap his tongue around the words. “You are the sky, and I am nothing more than the stars, destined to love you until the end of time, but I want you to know that it is perfectly fine that you love Calum, too.”

“Ash—” says Michael, brokenly, overwhelmed with the amount of love thick in the air around them.

“Please, don’t hate me,” interrupts Ashton. He thinks he might vomit for this part, but he needs to push ahead. He needs to get this part over with. He holds Michael’s hands even tighter.

“I could never hate you, you know that.”

Yes, Ashton does know that in theory, at least, but Ashton has never had to admit something so horrible in his entire life and never to Michael.

“I think I’m in love with Calum, too,” he says, all in one breath. He clenches his eyes shut, unwilling to see the repulsion in Michael’s eyes. “I’m such a damn hypocrite. I got angry at you for kissing Calum. I fucking threw you out of the hotel room for no damn reason and didn’t give you a chance to explain anything, and I turned around and fucking realized that I’m in love with Calum. God, you have to hate me. _I hate me_.”

But Michael doesn’t. He drags Ashton to him, using their hands to pull Ashton nearer and then releasing his hold on Ashton just to wrap both of his arms around Ashton. He crashes his lips against Ashton’s, a promise of undying love that words could never explain. The kiss is strong, yet brief, and Michael is the one to break it, but he holds Ashton close like he is afraid that Ashton might disappear if he doesn’t.

“You’re always too hard on yourself,” says Michael, the words falling familiarly off his tongue. One day, he might imprint them on Ashton’s soul just so that Ashton can remember to give himself a much needed break. “Love doesn’t make you a bad person.”

Ashton wants to fight Michael’s hold, because he doesn’t deserve to be safe in Michael’s arms. Michael should be angry with him, but Michael is a precious soul that Ashton is hardly worthy of. Ashton sinks into Michael’s arms, burying his face in the crook of Michael’s neck. He doesn’t deserve it now, but this is where he feels most safe and where he feels most loved, even though he knows that Michael should be running away from the hypocritical mosnter that Ashton is.

“No, but telling you I didn’t want to marry you because you kissed Calum and then turning around and falling in love with Calum does,” argues Ashton.

Michael laughs, despite it all.

“We’ve all made a right mess of things, haven’t we?”

Ashton nods, because they have. There is probably a right way to go about this, but they have hit every wrong turn. Ashton takes a deep readying breath, his face still hidden in the crook of Michael’s neck. His entire body trembles against Michael’s.

“Yeah, I think we have, but what if we could fix it? What if we could all be happy— _together_?”

Michael sucks in a sudden breath. His arms tighten around Ashton. His heartbeat accelerates, his pulse a fast pace against Ashton’s ear.

“Like _together_ -together? The three of us?”

Ashton bites his lips together. He nods like a coward, too terrified to speak, afraid that he might break the tentative hopeful spell around them. Michael loosens his arms around Ashton, but Ashton clings tighter to Michael until Michael slowly pries Ashton off enough to meets his eyes.

“Is that what you want?” asks Michael, his voice thick with tentative awe.

“I want you for the rest of forever in whatever manner you’ll let me have you,” answers Ashton, immediately. He knows this much for a fact. He is confident in that truth. The next part is a little more hesitant, but he still means it all the same. “I think I want Calum, too.”

“Are you sure?” asks Michael, as if Ashton is tempting him the entire world but afraid that Ashton will steal it right back. “Because, I swear, Ashton, I love you more than life itself, and I’d be more than happy to spend my life with you and you only. You don’t have to want Calum even though I do.”

“I promise you I don’t,” says Ashton, without hesitation. From where he is standing, he can see Calum laughing with Luke, or perhaps _at_ Luke, and Ashton wants nothing more than to march right over there and offer himself up—but only if Michael does, too. “I swear I will love you forever, Michael, and if you want Calum, too, then I think we could all be good together.”

“You’re too good to me,” murmurs Michael. He stares at Ashton like Ashton is a shooting star burning across a beautiful night sky. It is a hard image to live up to, but Ashton is going to try his damnedest to keep the sparkle of wonder in Michael’s eyes. It belongs there, keeping him safe and happy. “Sometimes, I don’t think I deserve you.”

“You’re the sky, Michael, and I am nothing more than the stars,” says Ashton, then, because he can, he kisses Michael, and the kiss tastes like _love_.

 

Luke begs off early, heading back to his bunk the moment his feet touch the first step onto the bus. He says he is tired, and he probably is. They all are. This leg of the tour has been the most stressful. Unfortunately for Luke, he has been an innocent party caught up in the mess. He probably deserves a good, long sleep.

The others wish Luke good night. Michael follows him to the back of the bus, leaving Luke to his bunk and heading into the lounge. Ashton heats a kettle of water for some tea. He likes tea before bed, but he likes having something to do with his hands when he is nervous even more.

As he waits for the water to warm, he turns around to face Calum, who is carefully tuning one of the strings on his brand new bass, the one he had bought shortly after lunch. Ashton is once again overwhelmed with how glorious Calum looks with a stringed instrument in his hands. Calum had looked like a handsome prince earlier with the banjo, but right now, he looks like a king.

“I can feel you staring at me,” says Calum, not looking up from the bass. He plucks his thumb across the strings then makes a face at the sound it produces. “You’re not saying anything. It is a little creepy, if I’m being honest.”

Ashton chuckles. If this were other situation—if the circumstances were different and Ashton wasn’t so overcome with nerves that he could hardly breathe—he might crack a joke and hone in on Calum’s proclivity for sitting in silence for hours and staring straight in front of him. Ashton doesn’t. The words get tangled somewhere in his throat. What comes out of his mouth is an entirely different topic of conversation.

“Did you mean it earlier—at lunch, when you said that some people are just meant to end up alone, did you mean it?”

Calum stops tuning his bass. He doesn’t look up at Ashton. He shrugs his shoulders instead. They are a rigid, tense line, just like the metaphorical line Ashton is toeing. Ashton knows the question is cruel on its face. He knows that Calum doesn’t want to think about his future lover, because Michael is already Ashton’s, and that sort of feels like the end of the road for him.

Ashton understands this. Of course, he does. If Ashton were in Calum’s shoes right now fiddling around with a bass that already sounds as in tune as it could get just to stave off having to go to bed in a cold, empty bunk while Michael sleeps soundly next to a lover that isn’t him, Ashton would be just as unenthusiastic for this conversation as Calum is right now. He would be just as heartbroken.

“Yeah,” answers Calum, brutally honest, in a voice that is void of any emotion. Perhaps it is because he is suffering from too much heartache to feel anything else. “Once you dream about something forever and then you lose it for good, you just sort of stop believing that things are going to go right for you and that you’re going to find somebody who makes you happy in that way.”

“Cal—”

“Don’t say you’re sorry, okay?” snaps Calum. He finally looks up at Ashton, and there is fire in his eyes. Underneath the fire, though, there is a heartbroken man drowning in sorrow. “I told you that I was happy for you and Mike, and I swear I am. I don’t need your apologies, and I don’t need your pity, and I certainly don’t need this stupid conversation.”

Calum leaps up then, his body propelled by years’ worth of pent up jealousy bleeding over into anger. He gently sets his bass back in its case and snaps the locks shut, but once it safely away, Calum’s movements become rushed and jerky. He stalks across the short distance to the kitchenette, and he gets right up in Ashton’s face. For a moment, Ashton isn’t sure if Calum is going to punch him or if he is going to kiss Calum first.

“You broke my fucking heart, Ashton! You ripped it to fucking shreds! I lied to you earlier. I did fall in love with you. I fell in love with you every damn day, but I was so angry with you that you got Michael first that I told myself I hated you. I told myself that I didn’t love you nearly as much as I did Michael, because it fucking _hurt_ to realize that the two people I loved most in the world loved each other, and I was going to end up alone.”

Calum’s voice echoes in the room. Behind Ashton, the kettle whistles, but it is an entire ten seconds before he realizes the noise isn’t the ringing in his ears from Calum’s shouts. Ashton reaches blindly for the kettle, setting off the burner and flipping off the stove through muscle memory alone.

Ashton can’t think about tea right now. He can’t think about anything other than how devastatingly broken Calum looks before him—his eyes red with unshed tears, his face blotchy with humiliation, and his hands trembling at his sides. Ashton can’t think about anything other than how much he wants to kiss Calum right now, so he does.

The kiss is sudden. It is unexpected on Calum’s behalf, but Calum’s lips are soft against Ashton’s, and Calum kisses him back after a couple of seconds. Ashton moves a step closer to Calum, their lips still locked together, until there is nothing left between them. He grabs a fistful of Calum’s hair, tugging gently to angle the kiss even deeper. Calum moans in the back of his throat. The sound nearly bring Ashton to his knees.

Ashton kisses Calum like he can’t live without Calum, and Calum kisses Ashton back as if he has waited his entire life for this moment.

When they break, Ashton’s lungs starve for air. He sucks in a deep breath, but he doesn’t move away from Calum. He loosens his grip on Calum’s hair, though he keeps his hand on the back of Calum’s head, forcing Calum to look him straight in the eyes.

“You won’t end up alone, I swear to you,” murmurs Ashton. He doesn’t need to speak any louder. He is so close to Calum that his lips brush against Calum when they move. “Mike and I talked about this earlier. We want you. If you want us, we’re yours.”

“I don’t…”

Calum trails off, his voice thick with raw emotion. It sounds like _love_ , like the way Michael’s kisses taste at the end of a long day or like the way Ashton’s heart beats just a little faster whenever he realizes how lucky he is to have his life. It sounds like Calum already belongs. 

“I don’t understand,” says Calum, finally. “Why would you want me when you’ve already got him? When he’s already got you?”

“Do you love us?” asks Ashton. He knows he is skirting around Calum’s questions, but the truth is that they don’t matter. Ashton can love Michael as much as he can possibly love another person and still have enough love left over to love Calum equally as much. “If you could have either Michael or me, would you be able to choose?”

“You’re talking crazy,” says Calum. It is a more of a breath and a trembling one at that. “You can’t just say something like that to me.”

“What? Asking you to choose between Michael and me? Or asking you if you love us? Because I’m willing to bet that you couldn’t choose between the two of us, and that you do, in fact, love both of us.”

“Ash—things, like this—I mean, this isn’t reality.”

“You’re not dreaming,” says Ashton, smiling. His heart is pounding so hard in his chest he thinks it might escape. “Tell me you love us, and you can have us forever.”

Still, though, Calum hesitates. It must be a lot to take in. It has to be, because Calum has spent years in love with Michael and with Ashton, and he has watched them fall in love, and people in love don’t usually love more people together.

“Doesn’t Michael get a say in this?” stalls Calum, like he thinks this might be one big elaborate joke.

“How about, ‘I’m very upset that you two kissed without telling me?’” asks Michael.

Ashton and Calum both jump, startled. Together, they turn to face Michael, but they stay pressed together like lovers. Michael grins at them, happy, from his spot in front of the closed door to the bunks.  

“How do you know we kissed?” asks Calum, sounding a little faint like it is only now occurring to him that he actually kissed Ashton.

Michael shrugs, grinning even wider.

“Saw it with my own two eyes,” he says, unabashed. “Hottest thing I’ve seen since that time I got Ash to wear black lace panties.”

Calum mouths _panties_ , his eyes wide with wonder and his cheeks darkening in a blush. Ashton rolls his eyes at Michael’s tongue, trying to seem as though Michael’s reminder doesn’t affect him. In reality, though, desire pools in Ashton’s belly. Michael promised that he would wear them the next time.

Ashton would like nothing more than to cash in on that promise right now, but he doesn’t want to scare Calum off or make Calum think they want him only for sexual pleasure. That simply isn’t so. Truthfully, Ashton would like to know how Calum is in bed. He hopes that, one day, however near or far in the future, he gets to find out first hand. There are thousands of things Ashton wants to learn about Calum and only a few hundred have anything to do with sex.

“Keep saying things like that, and you might not get to see me and Calum kiss again,” threatens Ashton, but he can’t keep the pleased smile off his face that Michael had found him and Calum together to be attractive. “Don’t scare him off before he says yes.”

“Oh, he’s already said yes,” says Michael. “A firm no would have been a kick to the balls.”

“Or being thrown on your ass?” suggests Calum.

Michael winces.

“Sorry,” he says. “You were drunk, and—”

“Yeah, I know,” says Calum, cutting him off. He seems to be unwilling to rehash everything they have worked so hard at putting behind them over the past couple of days. “Can I kiss you again?”

Michael gasps, surprised and pleased at once. He nods and eagerly bounds across the room to crash his lips against Calum. Michael kisses best like that—full-bodied, lips smashed together, and tongues swiping against one another. He pours his entire soul into the kisses, and Calum kisses back equally as desperate.

Ashton is left to observe, but he is still pressed close to Calum’s side. When Michael and Calum finally break apart, Michael chases after Ashton’s lips in a brief kiss. He is too breathless for it to last too long.

“You were right, Mike,” says Calum, lowly. He looks from Ashton to Michael and back again. The desire in his eyes makes Ashton’s toes curl. “It’s pretty hot watching the two of you kiss.”

Michael preens under the compliment. Calum laughs. He falls against Michael, dragging Ashton with him. Together, they are a pile of limbs barely standing in the tiny kitchenette of the bus. Michael comes to his senses first, after a few minutes, and he drags Ashton and Calum back to the lounge. Ashton leaves the kettle of hot water abandoned to cool. He can live without tea for tonight.

In the lounge, Michael has folded down the couch into a bed. He has stolen Ashton’s extra sheets to for the covers. Ashton would complain, except that when he crawls in between the recently washed sheets, he realizes the advantages to sleeping in the lounge instead of the bunks. They couldn’t all curl up together in one of their tiny bunks, Ashton on one side with Michael’s head resting against his chest and Calum on the other, his front pressed flush to Michael’s back. They fit together like they were meant to all along.  

“That’s a yes, right?” asks Ashton in the safety of darkness as they are all falling asleep together. They have barely little figured out at this point. They know nothing about this brand new relationship other than the most important fact that they love each other and that they all want this—that they all want each other. Mostly, Ashton wants to hear Calum say it out loud. “You love us?”

Calum’s answer comes in the next breath. He words settle around Ashton like a second skin.

“Like the stars love the night sky,” says Calum.

He leans over Michael to kiss Ashton one last time. Sleep is already threatening to overtake them all. Calum kisses Ashton sloppy with exhaustion, but it still tastes wonderful against Ashton’s lips. When they break apart, Calum falls back to Michael’s other side. He loops an arm over Michael’s stomach to grasp Ashton’s hand, linking them together.

“Oh, um, I should probably admit that I kissed Luke, too,” says Michael, in the darkness, barely a second later. His voice is thick with sleep, but he burrows farther against Ashton like he is afraid this confession might somehow break them. “That night on the roof in Jacksonville. I thought I was, like, cursed to fall in love with everybody I worked with, so Luke suggested I kiss him to see.”

“You kissed Luke?” repeats Ashton, with a sleepy laugh. If it were anybody else besides Luke, Ashton might feel a spark of anger. As it is, he feels nothing. Luke’s luck with love is notoriously awful. Besides that, Luke is a good friend. Ashton has nothing to worry about.

“Yeah,” says Michael.

“Is he at least a good kisser?” asks Calum.

His voice is muffled, because his mouth is pressed against Michael’s shoulder. The question comes out coherent enough. Michael pauses before he answers, so that he can think. He runs his tongue over his lip, remembering how soft Luke’s lips had felt pressed against his own. He snuggles closer to Ashton. He reaches back to make sure Calum follows him. Calum does.

“Yeah,” says Michael, because, safe between Calum and Ashton, there is no sense in denying the truth. “He was.”

Ashton makes a noise in the back of his throat, acknowledging Michael’s confirmation, but he is too far tired to utter anything. Perhaps it doesn’t beg for a response. Perhaps it is just one of those things that Michael needs to get off his chest so that he can stop feeling so guilty for kissing people who aren’t Ashton.

Truthfully, Ashton doesn’t know. He doesn’t care, either. It isn’t that important anyway. Ashton still loves Michael more than anybody else in the entire world—except maybe Calum. Underneath them, the bus drives down another endless stretch of an American highway somewhere between Nashville and Atlanta, and Ashton sleeps, safe and content, tangled up with Michael and Calum.

 

_Epilogue – Michael_

A crew member hands Michael a thin brown package a few days later right before they are set to play at Auburn Hills. The label is addressed to Ashton, but everybody knows that Michael and Ashton might as well be the same person as far as receiving mail goes. Michael doesn’t open the box, though his curiosity tempts him to do so a few instances in the time it takes him to walk from the bus to the dressing room.

He is the last one to arrive, having stayed back on the bus for an extra ten minutes watching the end of an episode of _Stranger Things_. He couldn’t miss it, not even for a second and not even though he knew he could pick up where he left off later. He had told the others to go on without him.

Only Luke had left without fuss. Ashton and Calum had both insisted on kissing Michael several times before he finally kicked them out just so he could have peace for the final segment of the show. He loves Ashton and Calum more than life itself, but they were disrupting his favorite part, and they had to go.

Ashton is stretched out across the couch in the dressing room, his socked feet resting on one of the arms. There is a hole in the bottom of his left sock, and one of his toes peeks through the fabric. Ashton doesn’t seem to mind. He has his head resting on a puke green throw pillow as he scrolls aimlessly though his cell phone. Luke and Calum are nowhere to be found.

Michael tosses the package at Ashton as a greeting. It lands with a soft _thump_ on Ashton’s stomach, and Ashton jumps, startled. When he spots the package he grins from ear-to-ear. He sits straight up, box in hand.

“Fucking yes,” he says to himself.

He rips the box open. Inside is a smaller white one with a golden logo printed on the side. Michael’s curiosity gets the best of him. He sits down next to Ashton and plucks the box out of Ashton’s hands. It is lighter than he expects.

“What is this?” he asks.

He shakes the box to see if it make any noise. It doesn’t. He looks over at Ashton, his eyebrows furrowed. There is a faint blush tickling Ashton’s cheeks. Ashton hesitates in his response.

“I know that Calum is fine with us still being engaged,” he says.

He stops, still hesitating. His eyes dart to the ring clasped around Michael’s finger, and he smiles at it like he always does, like he can hardly believe that Michael even said yes in the first place. A wave of love crashes over Michael. He has the urge to kiss Ashton like he always does when Ashton gets so heart-eyed.

“But I kind of thought that, maybe, Calum might want a ring, too,” says Ashton after a moment.

He reaches out for the box, but his hand trembles like he thinks this is the worst possible idea anybody has ever had. That is ridiculous. Michael’s heart flips in his chest, and he smiles. He loves Ashton so, so much. He grabs Ashton’s shaking hand and holds it in his own, steadying it.

“I think he’ll love it,” says Michael.

“It’d only be a promise ring for now, because, you know, we’re still testing the waters, but I got myself one, too. I got mine the day I got yours, but I didn’t want to put too much pressure on you and scare you away, so I hid it away in my suitcase. Now, though, we’ll all have one, and—I dunno. I thought maybe it’d be nice to have something to show that we all belong to each other.”

Ashton sounds so self-conscious of the idea, like he suddenly wants to return Calum’s ring and forget about the whole idea, but Michael has never, ever heard of such a beautiful gesture. It is perfect. Michael loves it. Calum will love it. Ashton is too hard on himself.

“That’s a brilliant idea,” says Michael, and, because Ashton still looks doubtful, Michael leans forward to press their lips together. It is a gentle kiss, full of love and reassurances, but it tastes delicious on Michael’s lips.

Michael wants to kiss Ashton forever, but, unfortunately, he can’t. The door to the dressing room creaks as it opens. Michael and Ashton pull apart, disturbed by the newcomers. It is only Luke and Calum. Luke has one hand on his phone, the other shoved into the pocket of his basketball shorts. Ashton hurriedly buries the box underneath the throw pillow he had previously been using to rest his head on. Luke eyes the pillow and Ashton’s hand shoved underneath it.

“Smooth,” says Luke, chuckling. “I swear, if the two of you have sex in the dressing room again—”

“That was once, and we thought we were alone,” interrupts Ashton, blushing.

“Well, obviously, you weren’t,” says Luke.

“No,” says Michael, with a snort. Unlike Ashton, he has no shame about getting off  in a public place. “Because you have a voyeur kink or something and waited until—”

“I don’t have a voyeur kink,” interrupts Luke. His cheeks are flaming red. He can’t look Michael or Ashton in the eyes anymore. This more than anything highlights the lie of his claim. His pitiful attempt to save face just makes it worse. “Shut up, Michael.”

Michael smirks. He loves riling Luke up more than anything in the world—except maybe kissing Ashton and Calum. It is really a close call between the two choices.

“Why’d you think we were having sex anyway?” he asks.

“That wasn’t a vibrator that your _fiancé_ just hid?” asks Luke, innocently.

“Shut up, Luke,” says Michael, “and, no, it wasn’t.”

“Where have you two been, anyway?” asks Ashton in an obvious attempt to divert the conversation.

If Calum notices the tactic, he politely chooses to ignore it. He saunters over to the couch where Michael and Ashton are seated, and he sits down next to Michael. He presses a quick kiss to Michael’s lips, missing and barely catching the corner. He pointedly ignores the throw pillow Ashton’s hand is still buried underneath.

“Luke got a hold of the vocals for Michael’s song,” answers Calum. He smiles at Ashton and then Michael. “You have to listen to it, both of you. It’s—it’s—”

“The best thing we’ve written since ‘Jet Black Heart,’” says Luke when Calum fails to find an appropriate ending to his exclamation. Luke takes a seat in the arm chair across from the couch. He sits back in it, resting his left ankle on his right knee. “I mean, that thing needs a little more work, and it sparked a shit storm between you three, but it’s a musical masterpiece. It’s good enough to be our next single.”

Michael’s heart skips a beat in his chest. His stomach churns with the ghost of anxiety. He and Luke had finished the song in Nashville, and all four of them had recorded preliminary vocals of the song on the road somewhere between Atlanta and Cincinnati to get a feel of it. Michael hasn’t yet heard the vocals played back. He isn’t sure he wants to, either.

Ashton squeezes Michael’s hand. He pulls Michael to him so that he can place a soft kiss against the top of Michael’s head. Once there, Michael stays, resting against Ashton’s chest and tucking himself underneath Ashton’s chin, safe and protected and loved.

Calum lays his hand on Michael’s knee for comfort, because he knows how vulnerable “Jet Black Heart” had made him when it was first written, and he knows that Michael needs Calum as much as he needs Ashton right now. Michael loves how well Calum fits into the relationship. It is seamless, going from _MichaelandAshton_ to _MichaelandAshtonandCalum_.

Sometimes, Michael forgets that there was ever a time when Calum didn’t belong to him, but the evidence in still there in all of them. It is in the residual guilt that Michael carries around with him, even though he no longer has a need to feel guilty about loving Calum so much he couldn’t just settle for Ashton. It is in the subtle frailty of Ashton’s demeanor like he is terrified of becoming that monster that broke Michael’s heart and kicked him out of a hotel room. It is in the way Calum touches Michael and Ashton so chastely, as if he is afraid that one day he will wake up to find that this has all been a dream and that he singlehandedly destroyed his best friends’ happiness over a drunken kiss.

The cracks within them won’t be there for long. The brokenness inside of them will slowly heal and fade into nothing more faint than scars. One day, long after Michael’s song is a hit single and long after Ashton goes down on one knee for Calum for real and long after Luke finally admits what he wants out of love, they will all be whole together.

The thing is, this glorious _one day_ will be soon—they just don’t know it yet.

For now, they are due on stage for another show. Michael is reluctant to leave the dressing room. He is comfortable where he is, sandwiched between Ashton and Calum. It is where he feels most safe. It is where he feels most loved. It is where he would gladly spend the rest of his life.

He loves music, and he loves playing to thousands of screaming fans every night, and he loves standing on stage with Ashton and Calum and Luke at his back, so he pushes himself up off the couch. He hurries out of the dressing room toward the stage where he is handed his in-ears and his guitar.

Together, all four of them head for the bright lights. Right before they leave the cover of darkness, Ashton pulls him back for a quick peck on the lips and then Calum follows him. Michael laughs into both of the kisses, so overwhelmed with love and happiness that he doesn’t know how he is going to get through the entire set without giving into the urge to kiss both of them in front of the entire stadium.

The show, like most others before it, is the best one yet. Michael plays his heart out. He teases Luke, and he steals Calum’s mic, and he grins over his shoulder at Ashton. Michael runs his fingers across his guitar, playing melody after melody that is burned into his soul while thousands of people scream the lyrics back at him.

He loves his life.

What he loves he loves even more is coming off stage, walking down the dark hallway with Calum at his side, and stopping just inside of the dressing room at the sight of Ashton down on one knee, a ring shining around the third finger of his left hand and another pinched between his thumb and first finger. The rings both match the one Michael hasn’t taken off since Ashton put it on him nearly two weeks ago. The only difference is the design, but Michael thinks Calum will love the braided design of the one Ashton presents to him.

Calum gasps, utterly surprised and wordlessly pleased. He glances over at Michael with tears pooling in his eyes. His face is of utter disbelief, like he doesn’t quite trust that Ashton is down on one knee in front of him. Michael smiles encouragingly at him. He takes Calum’s hand, and he gently nudges Calum back toward Ashton. When Calum meets Ashton’s eyes, Ashton is already smiling.

“I never thought I would ever be able to love somebody as much as I love Michael, but I was wrong. I love you more than life itself. I love you like the stars love the sky, and I swear to you that, if you would let me, I will love you for the rest of forever and then some. You are my best friend. You make me laugh. You explore cities with me, and you let me fill our apartment up weird art and secondhand musical instruments. This isn’t me proposing to you—not _yet_ —but, Calum Hood, would you do me and Michael the ultimate honor of promising to love us forever?”

For a long moment, Calum says nothing. He just stares at Ashton, amazement written across his face. Slowly, he turns to Michael like he wants to make sure that they are all on the same page.

“What he said,” says Michael, grinning. He isn’t as eloquent as Ashton is, but he would very much like to love Calum forever. “We love you, Calum, and we want something that says you are ours and we are yours. We’re all in this together—but you can say no if this is too soon.”

 “Are you crazy?” asks Calum. For a split second, Michael’s stomach drops, but then Calum smiles and shakes his head. He squeezes Michael’s hand so tight it almost hurts. He looks at Michael then at Ashton. “I love you, both of you. I never in a million years believed that I would ever get to say that out loud to either of you. Yes, I will love you. I will love you forever plus one.”

Michael lets out a relieved breath. Happiness bubbles up in his chest, threatening to overwhelm him. He pulls Calum in for a kiss, crashing their lips together, and Calum melts underneath it. Vaguely, Michael notices Ashton getting up from the floor and walking over to them, but Michael doesn’t stop kissing Calum until his lungs starve for air and they have to break apart.

Ashton is there. He reaches for Calum’s left hand and gently slips the ring onto his finger. The platinum band sets beautifully against Calum’s skin, as beautiful as it does against Michael’s and against Ashton’s, too. It fits there like that is where it was meant to be all along.

Calum stares at his ring in awe for a long moment before drawing Ashton in for a kiss. It is gentle, much gentler than Michael and Calum’s had been, but no less passionate. Ashton kisses Calum like he can taste forever already. Calum kisses back like he can, too.

When they part, Luke offers his congratulations just as he had done two weeks ago when Ashton had gone down on his knee for Michael. It feels like a lifetime ago. This entire leg of the tour is a blur of heartache and love, and it isn’t over yet—except, hopefully, the heartache part is.

 

Later, when they have boarded the bus and are on their way to yet another American city—Moline, Illinois, this time—Michael curls up on the pull out couch in the lounge. Calum is fiddling around with his phone right before they all go to bed. Ashton is taking their dirty mugs to the kitchenette.

Warm tea sloshes around in Michael’s belly, and he is content resting his head on Calum’s chest. Calum runs one hand through Michael’s hair, playing with it in a distracted manner. His ring shines beautifully against the glow of the overhead light. He types out a tweet on his phone and posts it.

“Forever + 1”

Michael smiles as he reads it, a wave of love washing over him. He runs his thumb across his own ring. He wants to kiss Calum straight on the lips right now, but that would require moving, and he is comfortable where he is, so he presses a kiss to the bare skin of Calum’s chest instead. Calum laughs. It jostles Michael a little, but Calum leans down enough to kiss the top of Michael’s head, so Michael figures that makes up for the disturbance.

Ashton returns a little while later, after he has washed the mugs and bade Luke a goodnight. Calum has long since put up his phone and is already lightly dozing off. Michael is well on his way there, too, but he is jostled awake when Ashton crawls into the bed next to him, pressing flush against Michael’s back. Ashton snakes an arm around Michael so that he can both hold Michael close and be comforted by Calum’s presence, too.

“Sorry, I woke you,” he says, kissing the back of Michael’s neck right where it meets his shoulder. “I didn’t mean to take so long. Had to promise Luke we wouldn’t have sex in the lounge.”

Michael laughs, quiet so he doesn’t wake up Calum.

“It’s nice that you lie to him so prettily.”

Ashton laughs at that, muffling it into Michael’s hair. He seems to realize then that the overhead light is still on, so he sits up to turn it off. He gets distracted by his phone—probably by the tweet Calum sent out half of an hour ago—so he types out a tweet of his own before he shuts off the light and curls up against Michael again.

He tosses his phone on the other side of Calum so that it won’t fall to the floor in the middle of the night. Michael squints his eyes in the darkness. He smiles at the tweet still illuminated on the phone.

“It’s nights like these, that ensure me that I’m going to be here for a while.”

Curled up between Ashton and Calum, feeling so overwhelmed with love, Michael knows that Ashton is right. They are all going to be here a while. They have forever plus one stretched out in front of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](http://tigerlily-sunshine.tumblr.com/)! :)
> 
> Links to the tweets!  
> [x](https://twitter.com/Ashton5SOS/status/753640886693756928)  
> [x](https://twitter.com/Michael5SOS/status/754426682426220548?lang=en)  
> [x](https://twitter.com/Ashton5SOS/status/754849396731342849)  
> [x](https://twitter.com/Michael5SOS/status/755565050488840192)  
> [x](https://twitter.com/Ashton5SOS/status/755686205195427840)  
> [x](https://twitter.com/Ashton5SOS/status/755686422590390272)  
> [x](https://twitter.com/Ashton5SOS/status/756723191423393792)  
> [x](https://twitter.com/Calum5SOS/status/758579269983285248?lang=en)  
> [x](https://twitter.com/Ashton5SOS/status/758590182320926720)


End file.
